Three ways to see.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 10:46 am

"These agents are trained to kill."

Is it possible to see that sentence as being any one of these?

1. A sentence containing an objectless transitive verb.

2. An agentless passive construction.

3. A construction with an adjectival phrase ("trained to kill").

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:27 pm

Let's go in reverse order, and start with number three first:

These men were trained to kill.
These men were real dangerous.
The exam was finished early.

Trained to kill is what these men were.
Real dangerous is what these men were.
*Finished early is what the exam was.

So it passes the test for three.

Two is perfectly correct.

One is an oxymoron. If it hasn't got an object it can't be transitive, so kill here is intransitive, as in, "Thou shalt not kill.

In essence this is the same example as The road was closed. The particular interpretation will be known to the speaker, and may be deduced from the context but is not relevant, as the end result is the same. If the SAS sergeant is showing you round the training camp, he will point to the recruits and the sentence will be an agentless passive construction. If he's talking about the men at a passing-out parade then it will be an adejectival phrase.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:45 pm

Stephen Jones wrote:
One is an oxymoron. If it hasn't got an object it can't be transitive, so kill here is intransitive, as in, "Thou shalt not kill.

An objectless transitive is one in which the object is readily understood or implied. They are normally used when there is only one or two choices to fill the object position.

Eve seduced:Adam ate.

John washes while Mary dries.

Davy shaves.

Bill always interrupts.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 4:15 pm

Fair enough. I don't remember having come across the phrase before.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:00 pm

Stephen Jones wrote:Fair enough. I don't remember having come across the phrase before.

See: Maarten Lemmens.
...

Here's a fine example of a objectless transitive construction:

Multipraktic 40: It chops, dices, mashes, whips, blends, mixes, purees, and more. All of this comes from a fairly simple handblender design that is very affordable.