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.

Note that English and French are quite liberal in that respect. But there
are other languages for which transitive verbs *must* be used with an
object, even when you don't want to specify it. In other words, in those
languages a sentence like *"I eat" is ungrammatical. You *have* to say at
least "I eat something". In those languages, the transitive/intransitive
distinction is much clearer than in English.

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.

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