intransitive and transitive verbs

intransitive and transitive verbs
intransitive and transitive verbs
A verb is transitive when it ‘takes an object’, i.e. it has a following word or phrase which the action of the verb affects (They lit a fire), and is intransitive when it does not take an object (We arrived at noon). Some verbs are always or predominantly transitive (assure, bury, deny, put); others are always or predominantly intransitive (especially verbs of motion such as arrive, come, go, etc.); and others are sometimes transitive and sometimes intransitive (for example, move is transitive in the sentence Go and move the car and intransitive in the sentence The car moved down the road, and cook is respectively intransitive and transitive in the sentences I like to cook and I'm going to cook the breakfast). Some verbs appear to have two objects, which in traditional grammar are called direct and indirect: in the sentence They gave her an apple, apple is the direct object (= what they gave) and her is the indirect object (= the person who got the apple). See also direct object, ditransitive, indirect object.

Modern English usage. 2014.

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