Verbs

A brief explanation on transitive n intransitive verbs :

Transitive Verbs

My sister broke the window.

In the first sentence, the word that comes after the verb, window, is the object of the verb. We say that window is the object because it receives the action of the verb. All objects of verbs receive the action of the verb.

Here are some more examples of transitive verbs with their objects:

* I sold some books.
* I took the bus.
* I bought a radio.
* I understood her question.
* I wrote a letter.

When a verb has an object that receives the action of the verb, we say that the verb is transitive.


Let's look at the other kind of verb now.

Intransitive Verbs

My father cried.

We can see in this sentence that there is no word after cried. In other words, there is no object for the word--there is no noun to receive the action of the word. Think about it--what could we say? My father cried something. Is there a noun that we could use after cried? We could probably think of one or two nouns, like tears, or even, good-bye, but normally, we do not use the verb cry with an object.

In this case we say that this verb is intransitive because it does not have an object after it.

Here are some more examples of intransitive verbs:

* I slept.
* I coughed.
* The glass fell.
* My cat ran.
* The sun rose.

We should notice that in each case, the subject is doing the action of the verb and nothing receives the action.

It is extremely important to be able to understand whether a verb is transitive or intransitive.

For many verbs in class, if your teacher thinks that the verb is hard to understand, we will ask something like this:

T: Do we cry or do we cry something?

Then, the student should respond something like this:

S: Just cry.

In this case, we would say that cry is intransitive.
BE CAREFUL!!

One reason that understanding this point is so important is that it is very easy to become confused about whether a verb is transitive or intransitive. Consider the following example:

I went to the store yesterday.

Is went transitive or intransitive?

Many people, including native speakers, will tell you that went is transitive since we have many words after went. However:

To say that went is transitive would be a BIG mistake!!

So, what are all those other words after went? First of all, to the store is a prepositional phrase. Second, yesterday is an adverb.


Hope this helps : )[/u]

Thanks Komal.

bedazzled wrote:Thanks Komal.

ur welcome..... wish u all the luck : )