Editing Transitive verb

{{Short description|Verb that entails a transitive object}}
{{Refimprove|date=June 2014}}
{{Transitivity and Valency}}
A '''transitive verb''' is a [[verb]] that entails one or more [[object (grammar)|transitive objects]], for example, 'enjoys' in ''Amadeus enjoys music''. This contrasts with [[intransitive verb]]s, which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' in ''Beatrice arose''. 

[[Transitivity (grammar)|Transitivity]] is traditionally thought of as a global property of a clause, by which activity is transferred from an [[agent (grammar)|agent]] to a [[patient (grammar)|patient]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hopper|first1=Paul J|last2=Thompson|first2=Sandra A|title=Transitivity in grammar and discourse|journal=Language|date=June 1980|volume=56|issue=2|pages=251–299|url=http://latina.phil2.uni-freiburg.de/raible/Lehre/2006/Materialien/Hopper_Thompson.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070627234224/http://latina.phil2.uni-freiburg.de/raible/Lehre/2006/Materialien/Hopper_Thompson.pdf |archive-date=2007-06-27 |url-status=live|access-date=24 January 2016|doi=10.1353/lan.1980.0017|s2cid=144215256}}</ref>

Transitive verbs can be classified by the number of objects they require. Verbs that entail only two [[Argument (linguistics)|arguments]], a [[subject (grammar)|subject]] and a single [[direct object]], are monotransitive. Verbs that entail two objects, a direct object and an indirect object, are ''[[ditransitive verb|ditransitive]]'',<ref>{{cite book|last1=Kempen|first1=Gerard|last2=Harbusch|first2=Karin|editor=Thomas Pechmann |editor2=Christopher Habel|title=Multidisciplinary Approaches to Language Production|year=2004|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-017840-1|pages=173–181|chapter=A corpus study into word order variation in German subordinate clauses: Animacy affects linearization independently of grammatical function assignment|quote=We distinguish two types of transitive clauses: those including only [a subject–direct object] pair are ''monotransitive''; clauses containing [subject, direct object, and indirect object] are ''ditransitive''.}}</ref> or less commonly ''bitransitive''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Maslova|first=Elena|editor=Vladimir P. Nedjilkov|title=Reciprocal Constructions, Volume 1|year=2007|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=978-90-272-2983-0|pages=1835–1863|chapter=Reciprocals in Yukaghir languages}}</ref> An example of a ditransitive verb in English is the verb ''to give'', which may feature a subject, an indirect object, and a direct object: ''John gave Mary the book''.

Verbs that take three objects are ''tritransitive''.<ref>{{cite journal | author =Kittila, Seppo | title=A typology of tritransitives: alignment types and motivations | journal=Linguistics | volume=45 | issue=3 | year=2007 | publisher=Walter de Gruyter| location=Germany | pages=453–508 | doi = 10.1515/LING.2007.015| hdl=10138/136282 | s2cid=53133279 | hdl-access=free }}</ref> In English a tritransitive verb features an indirect object, a direct object, and a [[prepositional phrase]] – as in ''I'll trade you this bicycle for your binoculars'' – or else a [[clause]] that behaves like an argument – as in ''I bet you a pound that he has forgotten''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mita|first=Ryohei|editor=J. Askedal |editor2=I. Roberts |editor3=T. Matsuchita |editor4=H. Hasegawa|title=Germanic Languages and Linguistic Universals|year=2009|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company|isbn=978-90-272-8768-7|pages=121–142|chapter=On tritransitive verbs}}</ref> Not all [[descriptive grammar]]s recognize tritransitive verbs.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Narasimhan |first1=Bhuvana |last2=Eisenbeiß |first2=Sonja |last3=Brown |first3=Penelope |title='Two's company, more is a crowd': the linguistic encoding of multiple-participant events |journal=Linguistics |year=2007 |volume=45 |issue=3 |doi=10.1515/LING.2007.013|s2cid=55658350 |url=http://repository.essex.ac.uk/11509/1/0c9605229ce53af0ac000000.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180720014711/http://repository.essex.ac.uk/11509/1/0c9605229ce53af0ac000000.pdf |archive-date=2018-07-20 |url-status=live }}</ref>

A [[clause]] with a prepositional phrase that expresses a meaning similar to that usually expressed by an object may be called ''pseudo-transitive''. For example, the [[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] sentences ''Dia masuk sekolah'' ("He attended school") and ''Dia masuk ke sekolah'' ("He went into the school") have the same verb (''masuk'' "enter"), but the first sentence has a direct object while the second has a prepositional phrase in its place.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Stevens |first=Alan |year=1970 |title=Pseudo-transitive verbs in Indonesian |journal=Indonesia |volume=9 |issue=9 |pages=67–72 |doi=10.2307/3350622|jstor=3350622 |hdl=1813/53485 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> A clause with a direct object plus a prepositional phrase may be called ''pseudo-ditransitive'', as in the [[Lakhota language|Lakhota]] sentence ''Haŋpíkčeka kiŋ lená wé-čage'' ("I made those moccasins for him").<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Esteban |first=Avelino Corral |year=2012 |title=A comparative analysis of three-place predicates in Lakhota within the RRG framework |journal=Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics |volume=25 |pages=9–26}}</ref> Such constructions are sometimes called ''complex transitive''. The category of complex transitives includes not only prepositional phrases but also [[dependent clause]]s, [[Apposition|appositives]], and other structures.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Hampe |first=Beate |year=2011 |title=Discovering constructions by means of collostruction analysis: The English denominative construction |journal=Cognitive Linguistics |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=211–245 |doi=10.1515/cogl.2011.009|s2cid=147402733 }}</ref> There is some controversy regarding complex transitives and tritransitives; linguists disagree on the nature of the structures.

In contrast to transitive verbs, some verbs take zero objects. Verbs that do not require an object are called [[intransitive verb]]s. An example in modern English is the verb ''to arrive''.

Verbs that can be used in an intransitive or transitive way are called ''[[ambitransitive verb]]s''. In English, an example is the verb ''to eat''; the sentences ''You eat'' (with an intransitive form) and ''You eat apples'' (a transitive form that has ''apples'' as the object) are both grammatical.

The concept of [[Valency (linguistics)|valency]] is related to [[Transitivity (grammar)|transitivity]]. The valency of a verb considers all the arguments the verb takes, including both the subject and all of the objects. In contrast to valency, the transitivity of a verb only considers the objects. [[Subcategorization]] is roughly [[synonym]]ous with valency, though they come from different theoretical traditions.

== History ==
Transitive phrases, i.e. phrases containing transitive verbs, were first recognized by the [[stoics]] and from the [[Peripatetic school]], but they probably referred to the whole phrase containing the transitive verb, not just to the verb.<ref name="treccani">{{Cite web|title=linguaggio nell'Enciclopedia Treccani|url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/linguaggio|access-date=2020-09-29|website=www.treccani.it|language=it-IT}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jPf2_DAQxhYC&pg=PA93 | title=English Grammatical Categories: And the Tradition to 1800| isbn=9780521143264| last1=Michael| first1=Ian| date=2010-06-10}}</ref> The advancements of the stoics were later developed by the philologists of the [[Alexandrian school]].<ref name=treccani/>

==Lexical vis-à-vis grammatical information==
Traditionally, transitivity patterns are thought of as [[lexicon|lexical]] information of the verb, but recent research in [[construction grammar]] and related theories has argued that transitivity is a grammatical rather than a lexical property, since the same verb very often appears with different transitivity in different contexts.{{citation needed|date=June 2014}} Consider:

*Does your dog ''bite''? (no object)
*The cat ''bit'' him. (one object)
*Can you ''bite'' me off a piece of banana? (two objects)
*The vase ''broke''. (no object; [[anticausative]] construction)
*She ''broke'' the toothpick. (one object)
*Can you ''break'' me some toothpicks for my model castle? (two objects)
*Stop me before I ''buy'' again. (no object; [[Antipassive voice|antipassive]] construction)
*The man ''bought'' a ring. (one object)
*The man ''bought'' his wife a ring. (two objects)

In grammatical construction theories, transitivity is considered as an element of [[grammatical construction]], rather than an inherent part of verbs.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Transitive and intransitive verb |url=https://grammarerror.com/tags/transitive-and-intransitive-verb |access-date=2023-11-09 |website=grammarerror.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/transitive|title=TRANSITIVE {{!}} meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary|website=dictionary.cambridge.org|language=en|access-date=2019-02-24}}</ref>

==In English==
The following sentences exemplify transitive verbs in English.
* We're going to '''need''' a bigger boat.
* You need to '''fill in''' this form.
* Hang on, I'll '''have''' it ready in a minute.
* The professor '''took off''' his spectacles.

==Other languages==
In some languages, morphological features separate verbs based on their [[Transitivity (grammatical category)|transitivity]], which suggests this is a salient [[linguistics|linguistic]] feature. For example, in [[Japanese language|Japanese]]:

{{fs interlinear|lang=ja|indent=3
|授業 が '''始まる'''。
|Jugyō ga '''hajimaru'''.
|The class starts.}}

{{fs interlinear|lang=ja|indent=3
|先生 が 授業 を '''始める'''。
|Sensei ga jugyō o '''hajimeru'''.
|The teacher starts the class.}}

However, the definition of transitive verbs as those with one object is not universal, and is not used in grammars of many languages. 

=== In Hungarian ===
{{Unreferenced-section|date=July 2020}}
[[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] is sometimes misunderstood to have transitive and intransitive conjugation for all verbs, but there is really only one general conjugation.
In present and future, there is a lesser used variant – a definite, or say emphatic conjugation form. It is used only when referring to a previous sentence, or topic, where the object was already mentioned. Logically the definite article {{lang|hu|a(z)}} as reference is used here—and due to verb emphasis (definite), word order changes to VO.
*If one does not want to be definite, once can simply say: 
:{{lang|hu|házat látok}} — I see (a) house – (general)

:{{lang|hu|látom a házat}} — I see the house – (The house we were looking for)

:{{lang|hu|almát eszem}} — I eat (an) apple – (general)

:{{lang|hu|eszem az almát}} — I eat the apple – (The one mom told me to)

:{{lang|hu|bort iszom}} — I drink wine – (general)

:{{lang|hu|iszom a bort}} — I drink the wine – (That you offered me before)

In English, one would say 'I do see the house', etc., stressing the verb – in Hungarian, the object is emphasized – but both mean exactly the same thing.

=== In Pingelapese ===
In the [[Pingelapese language]], transitive verbs are used in one of four of their most common sentence structures. Transitive verbs according to this language have two main characteristics. These characteristics are action verbs and the sentence must contain a direct object. To elaborate, an action verb is a verb that has a physical action associated to its meaning. The sentence must contain a direct object meaning there must be a recipient of said verb. Two entities must be involved when using a transitive sentence. There is also a fixed word order associated with transitive sentences: subject-transitive verb-object.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Preverbal particles in Pingelapese: A language of Micronesia - ProQuest|id = {{ProQuest|1267150306}}}}</ref> For example: 

Linda (Subject) ''e'' aesae (transitive verb) Adino (object) This sentence translates to, Linda knows Adino.<ref name=":0" />

=== In Polish ===
It is generally accepted in [[Polish grammar]] that transitive verbs are those that:<ref>{{cite book|last1=Polański|first1=Kazimierz|last2= Jurkowski|first2=Marian|year=1999|publisher=Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich|place=Wrocław|isbn=83-04-04445-5|title=Encyklopedia językoznawstwa ogólnego}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Nagórko|first=Alicja|title=Zarys gramatyki polskiej|publisher=Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe|place=Warszawa|year=2007|isbn = 978-83-01-15390-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Bąk|first=Piotr|title=Gramatyka języka polskiego - zarys popularny|publisher=Wydawnictwo “Wiedza Powszechna”|place=Warszawa|year=1977|isbn=83-214-0923-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Milewski|first=Tadeusz|title=Językoznawstwo|publisher=Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe|place=Warszawa|year=1967}}</ref>
* Entail a [[direct object]] (which is in the [[accusative]], or, for a few verbs, [[instrumental]] case in non-negated sentences, and in the [[genitive]] case in negated sentences)<br />OR
* Can undergo passive transformation

For example, the verb {{lang|pl|widzieć}} (to see) is transitive because it satisfies both conditions:

{{lang|pl|Maria widzi Jana}} (Mary sees John; {{lang|pl|Jana}} is the accusative form of {{lang|pl|Jan}})<br>
{{lang|pl|Jan jest widziany przez Marię}} (John is seen by Mary)<br>

== See also ==
* [[Morphosyntactic alignment]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

{{lexical categories|state=collapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Transitive Verb}}
[[Category:Transitivity and valency]]