Re: Question about transitivity/intransitivity

From: "Christophe Grandsire" <christophe.grandsire@...>
Subject: Re: Question about transitivity/intransitivity


> En réponse à Thomas Leigh :
>
> >
> >A transitive verb is one which can take a direct object, e.g. "eat". An
> >intransitive verb is one which cannot, e.g. "go". So what if which *can*
> >take a direct object is used *without* one? E.g. you can say "I am eating
> >an apple", which is obviously transitive, because the direct object is
> >there. But what about something like "What are you doing?"/ "I am
> >eating."  Are those verbs still transitive? Or have they become
intransitive?
>
> Actually, I'm not sure someone has a definite answer to that. Personally,
> in the same way as it happens in French (where "je mange une pomme" and
"je
> mange" are both allowed), I tend to consider that the object is just
> dropped because unimportant/unspecified. When you say "I eat", you imply
> that you eat *something*, but since this something is not important, you
> can drop it (just like some languages drop subjects when they aren't
> specified. Japanese is master in that :) ). So in my opinion they are
still
> transitive. The object is just unspecified. Others would probably argue
> with the same strength of arguments that the verbs have both a transitive
> and an intransitive use.
I would say that "eat" is transitive in English, as "I eat" does imply that
I eat something, even if it's unspecified.  (As Christophe said.)  It
certainly doesn't have a transitive use vs. an intransitive use, as it means
the same thing when with an object as without.  This is different than
"drive" which has come to be separate, "I drive" being simply "I travel in a
car", while "I drive them" means "I push them onwards".  Or perhaps "to
shoot up" and "to shoot something up", the first being "to use drugs
intravenously" and the second being "to shoot a lot of bullets at
something".