English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
C6 Verbs which can be transitive and intransitive
Section C Exploration
Transitivity was introduced in A6 as a determining factor in the formation of passives. It is discussed in more detail in A8 as a fundamental feature in different types of clauses. In this section it is investigated as a characteristic of verbs. The main question is: to what extent can verbs be characterised as transitive or intransitive?
It is impossible to divide verbs neatly into two sub-classes: transitive and intransitive. There are a number of reasons for this:
□ many frequent verbs occur in a number of patterns (see B8), some transitive and some not, usually with a difference in meaning:
He runs every day.
He runs a multi-million-dollar corporation.
And in fact many frequent verbs that are typically regarded as transitive have less common intransitive uses:
That will do! (= ’is enough’)
We pulled hard but it wouldn’t give. (= ’move’)
□ some verbs seem neutral to the idea of transitivity, appearing with or without an object with the same meaning, e.g. drive, drink, eat, read:
I can drive / I can drive a car.
Some are very limited in their range of objects, having a ’cognate’ object when transitive, e.g. sing with song and similar nouns:
He was singing in the bath.
He was singing his favourite song in the bath.
□ verbs that involve a reflexive or reciprocal action verbs can omit their object
He washed and dressed before going out.
They’ve been fighting ever since they got married.
Compare these with the transitive versions with the appropriate object pronouns inserted:
washed and dressed himself (reflexive), fighting each other (reciprocal)
In many European languages an object pronoun would be obligatory in this situation.
□ many verbs seem basically transitive but have missing (ellipted) objects, which are already known:
Can you re-send? (talking about an email message)
To repeat, . . . (cf. To repeat what I said before . . .)
If we paraphrase we can see the hidden passives. (from A6)
Are you going to buy or not?
In fact many of so-called transitive verbs in English seem to have the ability to appear without an object, given the right circumstances.
Another phenomenon involving a relationship between transitive and intransitive verbs, ergativity, is investigated in C7.
The following activities examine some of this variation.
Activity C6.1
Look at the sets of concordance lines below. In each case identify the lines where the verb is used transitively and where it is intransitive. There may be cases where this is not clear, or where other factors are involved.
Then say what the relationship is between the transitive and intransitive forms according to the above bullet points. Is it possible to say whether each verb is mainly transitive or intransitive?
A. Run
(Note that the form run can represent the infinitive, present tense or -ed participle.)
1. You can still run a storage heater for less than 70p per week!
2. She used to run a playschool . . .
3. The pair reckon the story will run and run until conclusive proof is provided . . .
4. A course in cancer counselling is to be run at Magee College . . .
5. There’s ditches where the water has run away all the boulder clay . . .
6... they’re timid creatures who will run away at the slightest sound . . .
7. Peak-hour trams will run every six minutes . . .
8. I don’t want one of them to run her fingers through my hair . . .
9. There’s a couple of ideas I’d like to run in front of you . . .
10. If I had been able to run my own theatre . . .
11. ... all new cars will have to be able to run on unleaded petrol . . .
12. ... what happens when the wine has run out.
13. ... ensuring that all phases of the programme run smoothly . . .
14. We may need to have another look at him and run some tests . . .
15. The measures will run to the end of 1990.
16. We’ve run up a cost of two hundred and fifty quid . . .
B. Drive
(The form drive can represent the infinitive or the present tense.)
1. ... I happen to drive a very small car . . .
2. It was fast, fun to drive, and, despite a high price, had an enthusiastic following.
3. He had the mobility and authority to drive around the reserve after dark . . .
4. People may smoke, drive at 80 miles an hour in fog on a motorway . . .
5. Unless you drive everywhere at less than 40mph . . .
6. Others . . . scheduled business calls first thing so that they could drive in later.
7. The doctor would not test his fitness to drive.
8. I’ll let you drive me all the way round . . .
9. That’s guaranteed to drive me to despair.
10. What are you going to do next? Drive my taxi into the river?
11. ... I’m learning how to drive now . . .
12. Can you drive over with Christina or Edward?
13. But the plan is not just an ideal for those who do not drive.
14. ... a build-up of stress which can drive people to rely on drink . . .
15. Who will drive the publication?
16. You have a car, so one way is to drive there . . .
C. Met
(The form met can represent the past tense or -ed participle.)
1. The club has met four times in SDCI’s office . . .
2. I have never met a more beautiful woman.
3. ... and there we met a group of people . . .
4. ... people only obey his decisions if certain conditions are met . . .
5. ... the poverty and injustices which he daily met around him . . .
6. We all met at a pre-luncheon reception . . .
7. Five criteria must be met before merger accounting can be used.
8. Give me a line-up of blokes I’ve never met before . . .
9. Such arguments were met by an unwillingness . . .
10. I seem to remember that when we met earlier in the year . . .
11. [This] pitched the Cabinet into more controversy as it met for the first time since the summer break . . .
12. I’ve never met his wife . . .
13. Your committee met on 2 December . . .
14. Each time we met we just felt closer . . .
Comments
Activity C6.1:
A
Transitive: 1, 2, 4 (passive), 5 (phrasal), 8, 9 (a relative clause), 10, 14, 16 (phrasal) Intransitive: 3, 6 (phrasal), 7, 12 (phrasal), 13, 15
11 could be either transitive or intransitive. In other words, on unleaded petrol can be interpreted as a prepositional object (What will they run on?) or an adverbial (How will they run?). See A8 for an explanation of the use of wh- words in identifying objects or other clause elements. See also C8 (’Hidden verb patterns’) for cases such as relative clauses where the object may not be obvious.
Note that run is quite commonly used as a phrasal verb (both transitive and intransitive): run away/ out (of) / up.
Overall, it is impossible to characterise run as principally a transitive or intransitive verb. It has a whole range of meanings linked either to the transitive use (’manage’, ’operate’) or to the intransitive (’last’). Note that, of the intransitive uses, none actually represents the ’basic’ meaning of moving quickly using one’s legs.
B
Transitive: 1, 2*, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15
Intransitive: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 16
*: It refers to ’a car’, the object of drive. If the sentence was It was fun to drive along the beach in our car then it would not refer to a car; this would be a case of extraposition (see A11) and the verb would be intransitive.
In all the intransitive lines ’a car/vehicle’ could be inserted. This suggests that there is little difference between the transitive and intransitive forms. But the metaphorical transitive uses (lines 9, 14 and 15) do not correspond to any intransitive use. C
Transitive: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12
Intransitive: 1, 6, 10, 11, 13, 14
All the intransitive lines could be characterised as reciprocal (we all met each other).