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English Language & Usage

Questions tagged [transitivity]

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Questions about verbs that take direct, or both direct and indirect, objects.

82 questions
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1 vote
1 answer
78 views

In the sentence They asked to see the head man. Is ask a transitive verb? Is to see the head man functioning as an adverbial or adjective phrase?
Odawara Pan's user avatar
  • 57
1 vote
2 answers
293 views

The sentence: Watching TV relaxes me. (relax as a transitive verb). is more or less similar (but not necessarily identical) to: I relax by watching TV. (relax as an intransitive verb). If we apply ...
mateleco's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
163 views

See these examples. 1-The boy breaks his toys every day (active form). 2-his toys are broken every day by him (passive form). But we also use "broken" as an adjective to express the current ...
Tom's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
124 views

I asked a question on this site and in one of the comments someone pointed out something grammatically wrong with this sentence that I had used in the Body: Traffic became increasingly congested as ...
EMS's user avatar
  • 471
2 votes
0 answers
209 views

Someone elected to office is sworn in and the event is called a swearing-in ceremony. Mr X has been elected chief minister. I saw a public announcement in a newspaper saying Mr X 'will swear in as ...
Ramkay's user avatar
  • 95
-4 votes
1 answer
110 views

Would something akin to the following parse? "Over time, the regimen successfully convalesced the patient." None of the examples given in definitions of the word I can find using ...
Era's user avatar
  • 1
2 votes
2 answers
967 views

A textbook I'm using to refresh some basic grammar states that indirect objects can be identified by it's answering of questions such as 'to whom', 'to what' etc. (fair enough) and they always come ...
Jos's user avatar
  • 166
5 votes
4 answers
1k views

I had my purse stolen during my stay in London. In this sentence, "stolen" is used insted of "steal". In my childhood, I had a fire break out. In this sentence, "break out&...
souma's user avatar
  • 59
0 votes
3 answers
130 views

Many verbs can be both transitive and intransitive. The glass broke. The glass was broken. The door opened/closed. The door was opened/closed. And I was told there is a semantic difference in the ...
Englishy's user avatar
  • 105
3 votes
5 answers
554 views

Go is clearly an intransitive verb. This source {Chomp Chomp_Robin L. Simmons} says: Some verbs, such as arrive, go, lie, sneeze, sit, and die, are always intransitive; it is impossible for a logical ...
fev's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
501 views

My understanding is that there aren't many pairs of intransitive and transitive verbs in modern English. Off-hand, I know of three (though I think there are more): lie vs lay rise vs raise fall vs ...
Sweet Sheep's user avatar
  • 149
1 vote
0 answers
171 views

My teacher told me that we can't convert intransitive verbs like 'walk' into passive voice when there is no object present. For example: He walks every day. But I think we can convert this by saying:...
Righter's user avatar
  • 111
3 votes
0 answers
73 views

This is both a usage question and a grammatical analysis question. I am familiar with complex transitive verbs, such as "to place", where one has to have at least one complement, besides the ...
pablodf76's user avatar
  • 175
0 votes
1 answer
76 views

I'm trying to find where the passive form "be regarded" belongs in terms of transitivity. In the sentence: Only a minority of countries would be regarded as part of the third world. Is the verb would ...
Nel's user avatar
  • 71
0 votes
1 answer
259 views

We choose evidence that everyone can agree shows him being out of touch with reality. Is this sentence grammatically correct? To me it only sounds correct when it’s modified to We choose evidence ...
Sungwoo Lee's user avatar
  • 3

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