Re: Question about transitivity/intransitivity

>Christophe Grandsire scripsit:
>
>>  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.
I'm not disputing your point, and I haven't done a statistical survey
(leave that to the grad students), but I think English may be a tad
more liberal than the French in this regard. Many prominal verbs are
such because they require an object. "I'm shaving" is okay English,
but "*je rase" in French is as jarring as saying "I'm wearing" in
English, hence "je me rase"; "I'm hurrying" vs. "je _me_ dépêche",
usw.

I'm thinking of bazillions of counterexamples as I reread this, but I
hope you get what I mean.

Kou

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