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Intransitive verbs

Intransitive verbs take no objects or complements.

Example sentence: The audience laughed. Explanation: The subject is The audience. The verb is laughed.

Example sentence: The driver accelerated in the straightaway. Explanation: The subject is The driver. The verb is accelerated.

Nothing receives the actions of talking and going in these sentences, so the verbs are intransitive. Such verbs may have adverbial modifiers. In the preceding sentence, in the straightaway is a prepositional phrase modifying the verb accelerated.

Transitive vs. intransitive

The dictionary will tell you whether a verb is transitive or intransitive. Some verbs have both transitive and intransitive functions.

TRANSITIVE

Example sentence: Sandra flew her small plane over the canyon.

INTRANSITIVE

Example sentence: A flock of migrating geese flew overhead.

In the first example, flew has a direct object that receives the action: her plane. In the second example, the verb is followed by an adverb (overhead), not by a direct object.

Exercise:

Linking, transitive, and intransitive verbs