Re: Transitivity with the reflexive and reciprocal

Trebor Jung wrote at 2004-02-08 20:45:33 (-0500)
 > Merhaba!
 >
 > Are the verbs in these two sentences transitive or intransitive?
 > They seem to be transitive, but since what's after the verb
 > basically repeats the subject, I'm not sure.
 >
 > They fight with each other.
 > He washes himself.
 >

Well... It's largely a matter of how you want to define choose to
define your terms.  Generally speaking, I'd consider a reflexive to be
an intransitive;  the verb is lexically transitive, but you've applied
a detransitivizing operation to it (reflexivization).  Similarly with
reciprocals, I think, although I suppose you could have a reciprocal
form which took a subject and an object.  Then I guess it would still
be transitive.