Transitive verb

“ OBS. 11.—The notion that one verb governs an other in the infinitive, just as a transitive verb governs a noun, and so that it cannot also govern an objective case, is not only contradictory to my scheme of parsing the infinitive mood, but is also false in itself, and repugnant to the principles of General Grammar. In Greek and Latin, it is certainly no uncommon thing for a verb to govern two cases at once; and even the accusative before the infinitive is sometimes governed by the preceding verb, as the objective before the infinitive naturally is in English. ”

“ To have shunned all shocking innovations, is only to have exercised common prudence. It is not pretended, that any of the Doctor's errors here remarked upon, or elsewhere in this treatise, will startle any body; but, if errors exist, even in plausible guise, it may not be amiss, if I tell of them. To suppose every verb or participle to be either "transitive" or "intransitive," setting all passives with the former sort, all neuters with the latter; (p. 59;) —to define the transitive verb or participle as expressing always "an act DONE by one person or thing to another;" ”

“ With which form can no auxiliary be used? Make a sentence using each of the principal parts of the verbs, go, see, begin, come, drink, write. What is a transitive verb? Illustrate. An intransitive verb? Illustrate. What is the difference between active and passive voice? Does a transitive or does an intransitive verb have both voices? Illustrate the passive voice. Distinguish between the use of sit and set. Of lay and lie. Of rise and raise. What is the general rule for the use of the subjunctive mode? In what way and where does the subjunctive of be differ from the indicative in its forms? ”

“ The objective case expresses the object of an action or of a relation. It generally follows a transitive verb, a participle, or a preposition.
A noun is in the objective case when it is the object of something. At present I shall explain this case only as the object of an action; but when we shall have advanced as far as to the preposition, I will also illustrate it as the object of a relation.
An active verb is transitive when the action passes over from the subject or nominative to an object; as, Richard strikes John. ”

“ NOTE III.--No transitive verb or participle should assume a government to which its own meaning is not adapted; as, "Thou is a pronoun, a word used instead of a noun--personal, it personates 'man.'"--Kirkham's Gram., p. 131. Say, "It represents man." "Where a string of such sentences succeed each other."--Blair's Rhet., p. 168. Say, "Where many such sentences come in succession."
NOTE IV.--The passive verb should always take for its subject or nominative the direct object of the active-transitive verb from which it is derived ”

“ When I say, The birds fly, the verb fly is intransitive; but when I say, The boy flies the kite, the verb fly is transitive, and governs the noun kite in the objective case. Almost any active intransitive verb, and sometimes even neuter verbs, are used as transitive. The horse walks rapidly; The boy runs swiftly; My friend lives well ”

“ A sentence containing a transitive verb can always be changed to the passive form, the complement becoming the subject, and the subject of the active verb becoming the object of the preposition by. This second point is a better test of the transitive verb than the definition is.
For example, take the verb earn in the sentence,—“Indeed, a man may earn twenty thousand dollars a year by writing ‘sensation-stories,’ and have nothing to do with literature in any high sense.”—Higginson. It is true that when a man earns he acts, but his action is not performed upon the twenty thousand dollars. ”

“ A transitive verb which, in the active voice, is followed by an object complement and a prepositional phrase, takes, in the passive, the principal word of the phrase for its subject, retaining the complement and the preposition to complete its meaning ”

“ III. A redundant verb is a verb that forms the preterit or the perfect participle in two or more ways, and so as to be both regular and irregular; as, thrive, thrived or throve, thriving, thrived or thriven.
IV. A defective verb is a verb that forms no participles, and is used in but few of the moods and tenses; as, beware, ought, quoth.
Verbs are divided again, with respect to their signification, into four classes; active-transitive, active-intransitive, passive, and neuter.
I. An active-transitive verb is a verb that expresses an action which has some person or thing for its object ”

“ Active-intransitive and passive verbs, the verb to become, and other neuter verbs, have the same case after them as before them, when both words refer to, and signify, the same thing; as, "Tom struts a soldier;" "Will sneaks a scrivener;" "He was called Cesar;" "The general was saluted emperor;" "They have become fools."
NOTE 1. Active-intransitive verbs sometimes assume a transitive form, and govern the objective case; as, "To dream a dream; To run a race; To walk the horse; To dance the child; To fly the kite." ”

“ Completing an incomplete transitive verb, but also belonging to a subject or an object (see Sec. 344 for explanation of the complements of transitive verbs) : "I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events" (retained with passive) ; "Do they not cause the heart to beat, and the eyes to fill?"
359. II. The substantive use, already examined; but see the following examples for further illustration:—
(1) As the subject: "To have the wall there, was to have the foe's life at their mercy;" "To teach is to learn." ”

“ The Simple Tenses of rach, combined with the Infinitive of a transitive verb, correspond to the Passive Voice of the verb; as, chaidh mo bhualadh my striking went, i.e., came to pass, or happened, equivalent to I was struck; rachadh do mharbhadh your killing would happen, i.e., you would be killed.
In phrases where either of the auxiliaries dean or rach is combined with a transitive verb, as above, the possessive pronoun may be exchanged for the corresponding personal pronoun in the emphatic form, followed by the preposition do before the Infinitive. ”

“ There is a sharp contrast between a transitive verb used absolutely and a real intransitive verb. To the former we can always add an object; with the latter no object is possible.
214. Is (in its various forms) and several other verbs may be used to frame sentences in which some word or words in the predicate describe or define the subject (§ 17) .
Such verbs are called copulative (that is, “joining”) verbs.
Is in this use is often called the copula (or “link”) .
Time is money. Grant was a tireless worker. Macbeth became a tyrant. His swans always prove geese. ”

“ If we choose to overstep the bounds of custom, we can employ any word in the language as an active-transitive verb. Be, sit, and lie, may be explained in the same manner.
4. Neuter verbs are used in connexion with adverbs which express the manner of action. They must, therefore, be considered active verbs. The child sleeps soundly; He sits genteelly; They live contentedly and happily together.
The class of verbs that are never employed as active, is small. By using adverbs in connexion with verbs, we can fairly prove that some verbs are not active. ”

“ The transitive verb is always in the definite form, if the substantive acted upon has the definite article, or the demonstrative pronouns azon, ezen, or is the name of a person.
In the definite there are also to be distinguished the person acting and the person acted upon.
If the first person acts upon the second person, the distinguishing termination of the verb will be, in all moods and tenses, -lak (for flat words) , or -lek (for sharps) ; as, verlek, I beat thee; várlak I expect thee. But when acting upon a substantive in the third person, the general rule is to be followed ”

“ Intransitive verbs may take a noun of kindred signification for a cognate object; as, he died the death of a hero; he dreamed a dream. Some intransitive verbs, by the addition of a preposition, become transitive, and so admit of a passive voice; as, the man laughed at; he was laughed at by the man.
In*tran"si*tive*ly, adv. (Gram.) Without an object following; in the manner of an intransitive verb.
||In` tran"si*tu (?) . [L.] (Law) In transit; during passage; as, goods in transitu. ”

“ And while the former teaches, that prepositions do not govern the objective case, but that every verb is transitive, and governs at least two objects, expressed or understood, its own and that of a preposition: the latter, with just as good an argument, contends that no verb is transitive, but that every objective case is governed by a preposition expressed or understood. A world of nonsense for lack of a definition! Pleonasm is the introduction of superfluous words ”

“ This is better English than the nearer version, "Living correctly is necessary for me;" and the exact imitation, "Living is to me correctly," is nonsense. Nor does the Latin gerund often govern the genitive like a noun, or ever stand as the direct object of a transitive verb, except in some few doubtful instances about which the grammarians dispute. ”

“ Intransitive verbs are sometimes used impersonally in the passive, as mātūrātur, it is hastened, but there is no advantage in burdening the beginner's mind with that point at this time.
§ 167. II. 3 and 5. It is well to remember that the verb move is always transitive in Latin and in a sentence would have an object. Such expressions, therefore, as you move and you will move are inserted simply for practice on the paradigms.
Vocabulary, p. 288. Have the declension of deus, § 468, learned at this time. ”

“ Some verbs usually intransitive may become transitive by being followed by a cognate object, that is, one whose meaning is akin to that of the verb, as in the familiar expressions run a race, dream a dream, smile a smile ”

“ E. Gr., 39. "Some nouns have no plural; as, gold, silver, wisdom, health; others have no singular; as, ashes, shears, tongs; others are alike in both numbers; as, sheep, deer, means, news"—Day's School Gram., p. 15. "The same verb may be transitive in one sense, and intransitive in another; thus, in the sentence, 'He believes my story,' believes is transitive; but in this phrase, 'He believes in God,' it is intransitive."—Butler's Gram., p. ”

“ After all, the verb of being is fundamentally transitive, and, in some ways, the most transitive of all verbs, and so it is not illogical to bring its powers over the pronoun into accord with the powers exerted by the others. ”

“ A verb transitive in one sentence; as, He writes good English, may be intransitive in another; as, He writes well—meaning simply He is a good writer. A verb is transitive only when an object is expressed or obviously understood.
Washington captured Cornwallis. Here captured represents the act as having taken place in past time. Tense means time, and hence this verb is in the past tense. Cornwallis captured, the war speedily closed. Here captured is, as you have learned, a participle; and, representing the act as past at the time indicated by closed, it is a past participle. ”

“ The verb, as in other languages, agrees with the nominative in number and person; as, Thou fliest from good; He runs to death.
Our adjectives and pronouns are invariable.
Of two substantives the noun possessive is in the genitive; as, His father's glory; The sun's heat.
Verbs transitive require an oblique case; as, He loves me; You fear him.
All prepositions require an oblique case: as, He gave this to me; He took this from me; He says this of me; He came with me.
PROSODY.
It is common for those that deliver the grammar of modern languages, to omit the Prosody. ”

“ The Dative with Special Intransitive Verbs. We learned above (§ 20. a) that a verb which does not admit of a direct object is called an intransitive verb. Many such verbs, however, are of such meaning that they can govern an indirect object, which will, of course, be in the dative case (§ 45) . Learn the following list of intransitive verbs with their meanings. In each case the dative indirect object is the person or thing to which a benefit, injury, or feeling is directed. ”

“ In the work of compiling an English dictionary, there are many nice differences to settle between function and form of distinct word-units. There is a surprising number of word-variations that are easily transformed into different words. The facility of compounding words is a temptation to the lexicographer not easily resisted, and which, when yielded to, encumbers the vocabulary. However cautiously he notes the uses of the transitive and the intransitive verbs, he yet produces an effect upon the average mind of the doubling of many verbs. ”

“ All others are considered intransitive, even those which of themselves are active, but either have no expressed object (as, I love, I hate, etc.) , or the word which they govern is in the verb itself, as in the Greek οικοδομεο, οικουρεω. As these can govern a second accusative, the object incorporated in the verb is included in the idea they express.
The tenses of the intransitive verbs, except the present and imperfect, while they drop ah and the possessive pronoun, are formed with that pronoun which forms sentences with a predicate. ”

“ Adjectives and the Adverbs formed from them take the Genitive, Dative, and Ablative of Nouns.
§ 126. Verbs.—All Verbs which give a complete sense by themselves, as stō I-stand, do not affect the construction of other words in the sentence.
Transitive Verbs in the Active take the Accusative of their Object, and often a Noun in some other oblique case as well.
Intransitive Verbs which do not give a complete sense by themselves are of two kinds:
(i) Those which require a Noun as Complement (§ 115) to complete their sense. ”