Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[faith2k]

If something is disintegrated, it may not take on any forms. Can I still use "disintegrated" with the preposition "into" when there is no trace of content remained?

In other words, is the sentence, "Starch is disintegrated into glucose," acceptable to mean "Starch is broken down into glucose"?

Thank you.

[CP]

I think disintegrated is intransitive, and usually you would not say that something has disintegrated into something else, because disintegrated means broken down into component parts. If starch turns into glucose, you would more likely want to say that the starch transformed into glucose, or broke down to glucose (and something else, I would imagine).
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You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[faith2k]

Thank you, CP. I like "transform."