Verbs - Transitive and Intransitive

This lesson is on transitive and intransitive verbs the transitive verbs are those that require an object an intransitive verbs either do not require or do not have an object and of course we have some verbs that can be transitive and intransitive and we have implications here for the passive voice of the object answers the question what or whom did the verb happen to we look at the example.

Peter is reading a book.

The book is the what that Peter is reading or Jane eat a healthy salad.

Yesterday

the salad is the what that Jane eight or I met your brother in town today.

Your brother is the whom I met today and these are sensible questions and have sensible answers.

That’s why it is an intransitive.

Because it has an object

if we look at intransitive verbs the same question doesn’t really make sense.

Because the action did not happen to any one or anything the baby is sleeping the baby is the subject the action or verb is sleeping and there is no object to this question about what or whom is the baby sleeping.

It really doesn’t make sense.

Similarly our hamster escaped the hamster as the subject escaped is the action or verb no object in the sentence.

So this question again really makes no sense.

And these verbs are then intransitive because they have no object.

Now you got to be a little bit careful because sometimes a verb might seem to be transitive but instead of a direct object it has a prepositional phrase that the baby is sleeping in his room does that make in his room an object.

The baby’s subject is the same.

The verb is the same but it’s not an object because his room is the object of the preposition in and in his room is a prepositional phrase not an object or our hamster escaped from its cage.

Again subject hamster escape as the action or verb.

But does that make from its cage an object know that its cage is the object of the preposition from and from its cage is a prepositional phrase not an object.

though some verbs depending on how we use them can be seen to be transitive or intransitive and these are sometimes called and be transitive verbs.

Peter Read a book that is transitive as it has an object Peter Read all day is intransitive because all day is not an object it’s an adverb.

So here the verb is intransitive

so we can take active voice sentences and rewrite them to put the sentence in the passive voice but we can only do this with transitive verbs.

Here’s an example.

Peter is reading a book so to put this in the passive voice he would say the book was read by Peter Jane 8 a healthy salad yesterday as the active voice.

The salad was eaten by Jane yesterday as the passive version of that or I will meet your brother in town today.

We wanted to put that in the passive voice.

Your brother will be met by me in town today and this is all fine for transitive verbs but when we come to intransitive verbs because they have no object we cannot write them in the passive voice.

If we take the example the baby slept for 12 hours now we’ve seen here that the for 412 hours is not an object

we wouldn’t say twelve hours was slept by the baby.

It’s very strange what our hamster escaped from its cage.

We wouldn’t say that the cage was was escaped by the hamster and there is a lesson on Active and Passive Voice.

And if this is a bit confusing in any way please check that lesson for more information.