Questions tagged [transitivity]
The transitivity tag has no usage guidance.
22 questions
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Criteria for transitivity
I am reading R. Dixon's work on ergativity. He employs three basic syntactic relations:
S for a single argument of a verb
A for one argument of a verb
O for the other argument of a verb
In an ...
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What type of verbs take a clause as the direct object?
We have detailed transitivity classification for the valence and the number of objects a verb can take.
Some transitive verbs can take a complete sentence (a clause) as the direct object. For example,
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What percentage of verbs in English take both a direct and an indirect object?
I am assuming that the number of transitive verbs that take both a direct and indirect object in English is a subset of those that just take just a direct object. Does anyone know how much smaller? ...
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Is there a name for the type of word that the word, “scarecrow,” is? (a transitive verb conjoined with its object)
The English word, “scarecrow,” spontaneously came to mind the other day, and I realized just how similar this word is to other words and phrases in other languages.
For example, there are many ...
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Is 'love' transitive?
I was just watching a linguistics video in which it was stated that in the sentence "John loves Mary", the verb love requires the direct object Mary, implying that it would be incorrect to ...
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the relation between the transitivity and intransitivity of a verb
I had a problem with understanding the following question:
Try to determine for each case how the 'intransitive' use relates to the transitive use and whether it reflects (i) an idiosyncratic ...
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Transitivity analysis of subjunctives and imperatives
I'm attempting a functional analysis of the text of the Catholic Mass, primarily in English but with reference to the Latin. The use of grammatical moods is quite rich, with plenty of subjunctives ('...
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How to find which verbs are semantically-related to a given verb or noun?
I am looking for a way to know, a tool that tells me, that, for example, the verb to show is the ditransitive semantic extension of the verb to see, simply because to show X Y = to let X see Y.
Let ...
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What is the intuition behind the term Transitive for verbs?
Why is a verb that takes an object called transitive? Why does that term make sense?
The way I see it is that it extends its action to an object rather than limits it within the subject. I take this ...
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Is There A Limit To Valency/Transitivity?
The max valency I ever read about is trivalency. However, hypothetically, can't valency extend to an arbitrily length? To extrapolate on this point, for trivalency, Wikipedia gives examples of:
I bet ...
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What's the agent and patient in a causative clause
Normally, agent and patient always stay the same:
The bread (patient) is eaten.
Carol (agent) ate the bread (patient).
But what if you had a causative clause, something like:
Peter made Carol eat ...
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Transitive phrasal verbs classification
Some grammarians classify transitive phrasal verbs into separable and inseparable. Just for instance:
Phrasal verbs that can be divided by objects are commonly referred to as being separable; those ...
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What does "argument sharing" mean in terms of co-ordination?
According to my professor, argument sharing under co-ordination only seems possible when an argument in the transitive is in ABS or NOM. What is meant by argument sharing? Could you give an example?
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What qualifies as a ditransitive verb, really?
The context for this question is that I am preparing an introductory grammar course to be taught to adult Papua New Guineans from different language groups who have varying levels of secondary school ...
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The place of "isolated" nominal and prepositional elements/groups within a transitivity analysis
What is the place of "isolated" (i.e. "standing alone") nominal and prepositional elements/groups within a transitivity analysis (i.e. there is no mention of an explicit process), and how can one ...
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Useful software and/or "manual" method for data analysis in a stylistic study of transitivity (SFL)
What would be a useful software and/or systematic "manual" method for data analysis in a study of transitivity (Systemic Functional Linguistics) that would like to incorporate some kind of statistics ...
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Transitive nouns (and adjectives) evidences from early Indo-Aryan languages
I search info and explanations about "transitive nouns", I didn't read Chomsky yet. I know he talks about "transitive nouns".
Transitivity is typically thought of as a property of verbs, and ...
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Does the verb “catch” show the causative/inchoative alternation?
The Oxford learner's dictionary has these example sentences under the entry "catch"(verb)
become stuck [intransitive, transitive] to become stuck in or on something; to make something become stuck
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Intransitive verbs that take Indirect objects
Can there be intransitive verbs which take an indirect object?
In the sentence "It pleases me" is "me" an indirect or direct object?
What languages frequently have indirect objects in a sentence ...
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Questions about transitive alternation
The following data show that the prefix re- can be attached only to transitive verbs.
List A List B
reblacken *rego
resoften *recry
reharden *resleep
The verbs of List A whose ...
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Is there a term for a finite verb which cannot be followed by an infinitive verb, in English?
For example, the verb "enjoy" cannot be followed by an infinitive.
I enjoy to eat – ungrammatical
I enjoy eating – grammatical
Perhaps this question relates to the area of transitivity.
This ...
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Are there languages without valency changing rules?
Most languages have valency changing rules. In English and many other languages, we have passive constructions, which change transitive verbs into intransitive ones: "The man ate the hot dog," ...
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