Intransitive verb

In grammar, an intransitive verb does not allow a direct object (It may still take an indirect object). This is distinct from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. The verb property is called transitivity.

In the following sentences, verbs are used without direct object:

The following sentences contain transitive verbs (they take one or more objects):

Some verbs allow for objects but do not always require one. Such a verb may be used as intransitive in one sentence, and as transitive in another:

In general, intransitive verbs often involve weather terms, involuntary processes, states, bodily functions, motion, action processes, cognition, sensation, and emotion.

The valency of a verb is related to transitivity. Where the transitivity of a verb only considers the objects, the valency of a verb considers all the arguments the verb takes, including both the subject of the verb and all of the objects (of which there are none for an intransitive verb).

It is possible to change the transitivity of a verb, and in so doing to change the valency.

In languages that have a passive voice, a transitive verb in the active voice becomes intransitive in the passive voice. For example, consider the following sentence:

In this sentence, "hugged" is a transitive verb taking "Mary" as its object. The sentence can be made passive with the direct object "Mary" as the grammatical subject as follows:

This shift is called promotion of the object.

The passive-voice construction cannot take an object. The passivized sentence could be continued with the agent:

It cannot be continued with a direct object to be taken by "was hugged." For example, it would be ungrammatical to write "Mary was hugged her daughter" in order to show that Mary and her daughter shared a hug.

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