Intransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that does not require a direct object to complete its meaning, typically expressing an action or state involving only the subject.[1] These verbs form the core of simple sentences where the action does not transfer to another entity, distinguishing them from transitive verbs that necessitate an object to receive the action.[2] Common examples include sleep, arrive, and die, as in the sentences "The child sleeps" or "The meeting arrived on time."[3] Intransitive verbs can often appear at the end of a clause or be followed by optional elements such as adverbs, prepositional phrases, or other adjuncts to add details about manner, time, or place, but they cannot take a noun phrase or adjective phrase as a direct complement.[4] For instance, in "She laughed loudly in the room," laughed is intransitive, with loudly and in the room serving as adjuncts rather than objects. This structure contrasts with transitive constructions, where omitting the object results in an incomplete sentence, and intransitive verbs notably cannot form passive voice equivalents.[4] Many verbs exhibit ambitransitivity, allowing them to function as either transitive or intransitive based on context, such as run in "They run daily" (intransitive) versus "They run a business" (transitive).[2] In linguistic analysis, intransitive verbs are further subdivided into unaccusative (often involving change of state, like fall) and unergative (typically agent-driven activities, like work) categories, which influence syntactic patterns such as subject properties and auxiliary verb selection in languages like Italian or French.[5] Understanding these distinctions is essential for constructing grammatically correct sentences and analyzing verb valency across languages.[2]Fundamentals
Definition
An intransitive verb is a verb that does not require a direct object to complete its meaning, typically forming a complete clause with only a subject in the syntactic pattern of Subject + Verb.[1][6] This distinguishes it from other verb types by limiting the verb's valency to one argument, the subject, without transferring action to an additional recipient.[7] The term "intransitive" originates from Late Latin intransitīvus, meaning "not passing over," derived from in- ("not") + trānsitīvus ("passing over," as in transitive), reflecting the verb's lack of action transfer to an object.[8] It entered English grammatical terminology in the 17th century, building on classical Latin traditions of classifying verbs by their ability to govern objects.[8] Basic syntactic tests identify intransitive verbs through their resistance to certain transformations. For instance, they cannot undergo passivization, as there is no direct object available to promote to subject position, unlike transitive verbs that permit such restructuring.[9] Additionally, attempting to introduce a direct object typically alters the verb's core meaning or requires a different lexical item, confirming the verb's inherent one-argument structure.[10] In sentence structure, intransitive verbs contribute to economical clause formation by achieving semantic completeness without complements, contrasting with transitive verbs that demand a direct object to fully express the action.[11] This role underscores their foundational place in syntax, enabling simple declarative sentences focused on the subject's action or state.[12]Comparison with Transitive Verbs
Intransitive verbs differ fundamentally from transitive verbs in their syntactic requirements, as they form complete clauses using only a subject as the core argument, without needing a direct object. For instance, the sentence "She sleeps" is syntactically complete with the intransitive verb "sleeps" and its subject "she," whereas a transitive verb like "eats" requires a direct object to complete the clause, as in "She eats an apple."[13] This distinction arises because intransitive verbs denote one-participant events, limiting their argument structure to a single core role, typically filled by the subject in subject-verb (SV) order in languages like English.[14] Semantically, intransitive verbs assign a single thematic role to their subject, such as an agent (for volitional actions) or a theme (for non-volitional states), reflecting situations involving only one participant. In contrast, transitive verbs encode two-participant events, assigning distinct roles like agent to the subject (the instigator) and patient or theme to the object (the affected entity), as in "The chef cooked the meal," where "chef" is the agent and "meal" the patient.[14] This semantic asymmetry highlights how transitivity correlates with the complexity of event representation, with intransitives focusing on internal or self-contained actions.[15] Grammatically, these differences lead to distinct behavioral patterns, such as the inability of intransitive verbs to undergo passivization, since there is no object to promote to subject position; attempts like "*The city was arrived by the train" are ungrammatical in English. Transitive verbs, however, readily form passives, e.g., "The apple was eaten by her," demoting the agent and promoting the patient.[13] Additionally, intransitives lack extensions into ditransitive structures, which require two objects (direct and indirect) and are a feature of certain transitive verbs, like "give" in "She gave him a book."[14]| Verb Type | Required Arguments | Example Sentence | Passivization Possibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intransitive | Subject only (S) | She sleeps. | No (*She was slept.) |
| Transitive | Subject + object (A + O) | She eats an apple. | Yes (An apple was eaten by her.) |