Lesson sixteen
16.1 Intransitive verbs
An Intransitive verb is an action verb that does not require a direct object for the sentence to have complete meaning.
Examples:
The ship sailed.
Subject action verb
The child smiled.
Subject action verb
They do not answer the questions what? or whom? Sometimes they answer the questions how? or how often?
Examples:
The ship sailed smoothly. (How did it sail? Smoothly)
The child smiled repeatedly. (How often did the child smile? Repeatedly)
16.2 Both transitive and intransitive verbs
Some verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively.
Examples:
We cheered our team noisily.
(Transitive) We cheered noisily.
(Intransitive) He broke the window pane.
(Transitive) The glass broke. (Intransitive)
NB: Only transitive verbs can be changed from active to passive voice.
Examples:
Active Passive
He kicked the ball The ball was kicked by him
She bought a new dress A new dress was bought by her.
She wailed loudly ??
They danced well ??
16.3 Exercise 16
Indicate at the end of each of the following sentences whether the underlined verb is
Transitive or Intransitive.
- Some whales sing
- We gave our books to the gatekeeper.
- She cried
- He made a sketch of the
- John danced to the
- The bird flew in the
- They located the lost
- She pleaded with him
- The children heard the sound from the
- It rained