Job Discussion Forums

[vre]

Has anyone got a list of intransitives e.g die?

[ouyang]

There's a list of phrasal verbs at http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/phrasals.htm that's partly organized in transitive and intransitive tables. You'd think there would be an online transitive/intransitive verb list, but I've never found one.

I'm in the process of making my own, but I haven't finished it yet, and I'm working on other thngs these days.

[shmooj]

[Professor Moriarty]

And don't neglect the middle voice-type intransitive, as in, 'That brand of cigarette smokes well' (as in 'The essay reads well').

'Ouyang', you write, "You'd think there would be an online transitive/intransitive verb list, but I've never found one." Perhaps you should stop and wonder why this might be. What makes you sure such a 'list' exists, or even could exist in principle? Personally speaking I am endlessly fascinated with such na�ve views. I never knew so many people had such a twisted and perverted view of the nature of natural human language. You seem to think that there are 'sources' which contain 'the truth' and 'the facts' of language, such as grammars and dictionaries to which speakers of a language can go and consult for such truths. You don't seem to realise that grammarians (of all descriptions) and lexicographers examine the use of language by its native speakers in order to (attempt) to compile such reference and educational aids, and, for the grammarians, (partial) grammars of a language. (Remember, a 'grammar' of a language is but a theory of the language: the (presumably) finite set of rules that allows a native speaker, in tandem with a lexicon, to produce and comprehend a potentially indefinite number of unique utterances all of which are acceptable to other native speakers). I say 'attempt' and 'partial' here as there is no such thing as a complete grammar of any language anywhere as it is simply too vast a task. Dictionaries too only give suggestions to those that already know the answers.

As 'Shmooj' states, there is no ultimate 'intransitivity' (and we could add, no Platonic Essence of intransitivity floating around anywhere). The argument structure associated with a verb (whether it is transitive, intransitive, or ditransitive) is an extremely nettlesome area in structural linguistics. It is easy to claim, for example, that 'to give' is a ditransitive verb, that it takes three obligatory arguments: the subject, the object, and the indirect object, as in 'x gives/gave y z' or 'x gives/gave z to y' (this is called the dative alternation). Under this analysis, 'to give' is clearly a ditransitive verb. If one of these three arguments are not present then the resulting (non)sentence is flatly rejected by native speakers. You would never dream of placing this verb on your putative (indeed, fictitious) list now, would you?

But clearly 'to give' can also be transitive, with just two arguments, as in 'The victim gave his life'. This is where linguists would tend to split. Some would claim that there are two verbs 'to give' stored and represented both in the lexicon and in external language, one ditransitive and the other transitive. Other linguists would say that there is but one verb 'to give' and what you have here is simply a case of (semantically or pragmatically driven) ellipsis of one argument (the indirect object in this particular case). Others would say that it is a ditransitive verb in its unmarked form, but can be and often is used by native speakers as a transitive verb (which is its marked form). Others would say there is no verb 'to give' only statistical occurrences of a lexical item that linguists can recognise as (something we call) 'giving' and which we term, in its infinite form, 'to give'. Others would make other arguments that I won't go into here as they are a bit more complex.

Unfortunately of course, 'to give' can also only have one argument. When we look at corpora of authentic speech data we find instances of 'give' as a single argument verb, such as:

What did that vicar do with his life?
He gave.

Should we place the verb 'to give' on this 'list' of intransitives you claim to be compiling (despite the elusive, ill-defined, and perhaps even fractal (i.e., infinite) nature of the object)?

There are other examples of this verb being used with an (arguably) intransitive syntactic frame in discourse, or (an arguably) transitive structure, depending on your view. For example, most native speakers would reject, if met in isolation, 'I'll give you perhaps!' as they feel it is short of one argument, the direct object. But, if the same person meets this statement as part and parcel of an authentic discourse, there are no such feelings of ungrammaticality:

Father to son: Are you going to do the washing up?
Son: Perhaps.
Father: I'll give you perhaps!

In addition, there are also many different kinds of 'intransitive' verbs. You will need to begin by examining the distinctions between unaccusative verbs and ergative verbs. Note also that the brief comments above only begin to scratch the layman's surface. I kept things very simple by only concentrating on the active voice; unfortunately for those claiming to be compiling a magical 'list' of 'intransitive' verbs (when not engaged on other projects of presumably vital importance) there is another whole set of classes of such verbs, defined by whether or not they can be employed in the passive voice and which arguments are obligatory and which are optional when used this way.

[once again]

I believe there have been lists of intransitive and transitive verbs for a while now..whether internet or not..we folks call them dictionaries..and you may find some nouns and adjectives..and ...etc..also

[shmooj]

The Professor's explanation is detailed, informed and thorough. It is a shame that you had to resort to labelling Ouyang's views as naive, perverted and twisted. You did the same to my post on another topic. How can this be constructive and help us increase our understanding?Affective filters are strong and I presume, from your obvious knowledge of linguistics, you know what I refer to here.

But perhaps your aim really isn't to educate?

[Twisting in the Wind]

Yeah, I'm with Shmooj here. There are all kinds of people using, browsing, posting on this board. Not all of them have the background or experience that you have, Prof. Name-calling won't accomplish anything. Let's keep it friendly, so we all can learn. I find this an interesting post and wouldn't want to feel intimidated from posting my limited knowledge on the subject.

I find it interesting that languages are in transition. We borrow a lot in English. For example, the word "disappear." For years in Spanish, they have said , "He was disappeared, " or "They disappeared him" to refer to someone who was kidnapped and murdered by a paramilitary force, instead of our usual " He disappeared." Now, it is becoming more common to hear in English, the direct translation from the Spanish: "They disappeared him" (etc) Thus "disappear is one instance of an intransitive verb in English morphing into a transitive one because we are borrowing from another language.

[Paul John]

I have to agree with Twistie and smooj.

It's a fact that English teachers with thorough training in linguistics, grammar and/or ESL are very much a minority.

For that matter, EFL teachers who make an effort to improve their knowledge aren't exactly a majority either. Let's not dump on the ones who are trying to learn more.

[ouyang]