Transitive
and Intransitive Verbs
This
exercise was written by Erin
Billy.
The
Difference Between Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
My
sister broke the window.
My
father cried.
Can
you figure out the difference between the verbs (broke,
cried) in the above sentences? I'm not
talking about the meaning, I'm talking about the grammar.
In other words, how are these two verbs grammatically
different?
We
should notice that the first verb, broke,
has another word after it. The second verb,
cried, does not have another word after
it. Generally speaking, we can say that all verbs in
English can be divided into two groups--those that must
have a word (or words) after them and words that do
not have to have any word after them.
This
rule is simplified right now, but we will learn more
later. For now, let's just focus on the simple ideas.
Let's
look at the two different kinds of 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.
Transitive verbs are more common on the TOEFL than intransitive
verbs, but many students get confused about intransitive
verbs.
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, so 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.
Common
Test Prep Points
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?
Well, first of all, to the store
is a prepositional phrase. Second, yesterday
is an adverb.
One
more thing: just to make life easier, instead of saying
transitive and intransitive all the time,
we will say vi (since that's what most dictionaries
say) if the verb is intransitive and vt (again,
since that's what most dictionaries say) if the verb
is transitive.
Trust
TestMagic: This is extremely important!! We will do
some exercises on this point a little bit later.
Summary
of Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
There
are some important exceptions to these rules and we
will talk about them later. However, for now, we have
enough information to do some practice.
Practice
Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
This
exercise is relatively simple--just decide whether the
verb is transitive or intransitive. In this case, write
the answer choice that is more common. Finally,
you will notice that several words have been repeated.
This is because I want you to remember these words since
they are the most common on the TOEFL and they cause
the most problems for students.
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