These two types have a number of subtypes which show pervasive semantic and syntactic parallels, so that they can usefully be considered together.

The role common to all MOTION verbs is (thing) Moving (e.g. Mary ran) and to all REST verbs (thing) Resting (e.g. John knelt). There may also be specification of Locus—the place of rest, or place with respect to which motion takes place. For some verbs specification of Locus is obligatory, e.g. He resides in town; for others it is optional, e.g. John stood (on the stone).

An NP in Locus role is most often marked by the appropriate preposition. As noted, such place adverbial NPs are semantically linked to the MOTION/REST verb and are typically placed after the predicate. Certain MOTION verbs may allow the preposition to be omitted, a slight semantic difference then resulting, e.g. He jumped (over) the river, She climbed (up) the mountain. It is also possible in certain circumstances to omit a preposition before a measure phrase, e.g. He ran (for) a mile. Conditions for omitting the preposition.

A fair proportion of MOTION and REST verbs are intransitive. Quite a few of these may be used transitively in a causative sense (i.e. with S = O); thus, The horse trotted around the ring, He trotted the horse around the ring, and The plant stood on the window-sill, He stood the plant on the window-sill.

Others are basically transitive, e.g. take. Only some of these may omit an object NP if it can be inferred from context and/or surrounding dialogue, e.g. We followed (him) as far as the minefield. Transitivity is largely determined by the meaning of a verb; that is, by the subtype to which it belongs.

We can recognize seven subtypes of MOTION and six of REST. Taking these one or two at a time:

MOTION-a, the RUN subtype, refers to a mode of motion, e.g. run, walk, crawl, slide, spin, roll, turn, wriggle, swing, wave, rock, shake, climb, dive, stroll, trot, gallop, jog, dance, march, jump, bounce, swim, fly and one sense of play (as in The child is playing in the sand).

REST-a, the SIT subtype, refers to a stance of resting, e.g. sit (down), stand (up), lie (down), kneel, crouch, squat, lean, hang (down), float.

Verbs in these two subtypes are basically intransitive. Since they describe a mode of motion or stance of rest the only obligatory role is Moving/ Resting. A Locus can be included, but this is optional, e.g. He loves strolling (in the park), Mary is sitting down at last (in her favorite armchair).

There exists the potential for any verb from RUN or SIT to be used transitively, in a causative sense. The Moving or Resting role (which is S in an intransitive construction) becomes O, and an additional role—the Causer, normally HUMAN—is introduced in A syntactic function, e.g. The dog walked, He walked the dog; The log slid down the icy track, He slid the log down the icy track; The child lay down on the couch, She laid the child down on the couch; The raft floated on the stream, He floated the raft on the stream.

Some RUN and SIT verbs are commonly used in transitive constructions, e.g. spin, roll, rock, trot, march, fly, sit, stand, lean, hang. Others seldom or never are, e.g. climb, dive, stroll, kneel, crouch. This is simply because people do not often make someone or something climb or dive or kneel, as they do make them march or roll or sit (and this often relates to the activity, that it is something which is not easy for an outsider to control). But the potential exists for any verb from these types to be used causatively if the appropriate circumstances should arise. Suppose that someone chose to train a possum to climb high, for some marsupial Olympics; in such circumstances one could say, side by side with The champion possum climbed to the top of a kauri pine, the sentence He climbed the champion possum to the top of a kauri pine.

Ride and drive can be considered members of the RUN subtype which are only used in causative form, e.g. John rode the mare. Since there is no corresponding intransitive (e.g. *The mare rode) it is permissible to omit specification of the object NP in appropriate circumstances, e.g. John rides every morning.

MOTION-b, the ARRIVE subtype, deals with motion with respect to a definite Locus, e.g. (i) arrive, return, go, come; (ii) enter, exit, cross, depart, travel, pass, escape; come in, go out; (iii) reach, approach, visit (which spans the MOTION and ATTENTION types).

REST-b, the STAY subtype, deals with rest at a definite Locus, e.g. stay, settle (down), live, stop, remain, reside; attend.

Since verbs from these two subtypes refer to motion or rest with respect to a Locus, the Locus must normally be stated, either through an NP or an adverbial, e.g. He has remained outside/in the garage, She hasn’t yet travelled to Spain/there.

STAY verbs are almost all intransitive, and include a preposition before the Locus NP, e.g. stay on the farm. Some ARRIVE verbs have similar syntax, e.g. arrive at the station, return to Sheffield, go to the cowshed, come into the kitchen. Go and come include in their meanings a Locus specification ‘to there’ and ‘to here’ respectively; in view of this, here can be omitted from come here and there from go there, although these adverbs often are retained. Arrive and return may also be used without a Locus NP or adverb, and ‘here’ is then implied. (A Locus NP may also be omitted after these verbs when it could be inferred from the previous discourse, e.g. He cycled all the way to town. Oh, what time did he arrive (sc. in town)? and She’s driven over to Brighton. How long is she staying (sc. in Brighton)?)

As mentioned under (a), just come and go may be followed by an -ing clause (then behaving like Secondary-A verbs), as in We went hunting yesterday. And, in American English, go and come (just in base form) may shorten an in order to construction, as in Let’s go (in order to) eat!

Set (ii) of ARRIVE verbs could also be regarded as intransitive, with the Locus marked by a preposition; but this preposition may be omitted in appropriate circumstances. Enter and exit would generally omit the preposition, e.g. enter (into) the room. Cross can equally well retain or omit it, e.g. cross (over) the road. Depart may omit the preposition in some styles of speech, e.g. depart (from) the city. Travel can occur with a variety of prepositions; just over can be omitted, from a sentence like He travelled ((all) over) Africa from coast to coast. Pass can omit by, as in pass (by) the church, but not through, e.g. pass through the tunnel/funfair. In all of these instances omission of a preposition carries a semantic difference. This can clearly be seen with escape—a preposition is required with the meaning ‘get away from a place, where one was confined’, e.g. escape from prison, but not for the meaning ‘avoid (confinement, or some other ill fortune)’, e.g. escape (being sent to) prison, escape punishment.

A few ARRIVE verbs are basically transitive, e.g. approach, visit and reach, as in They won’t reach the lake tonight. (There is also reach (to) ‘extend to’, as in The road reaches to the coast; this sense relates to the STRETCH subtype of AFFECT.) From the STAY subtype, attend is transitive and generally has a non-CONCRETE noun as object, e.g. He attended the meeting/play/wedding.

ARRIVE and STAY verbs generally cannot be used in a causative construction, but there are some exceptions. Settle may be used causatively and then the Causer will generally be in a position of authority, e.g. Baby settled down for the night, Mother settled baby down for the night; Ex-servicemen settled on the plains, The government settled ex-servicemen on the plains. Return would normally have an animate NP in S function, e.g. Fred has returned to work; it can be used causatively, generally with a non-human O NP, e.g. John returned the book to the library. If the Moving role for pass is a manipulable object the verb can then be used transitively, e.g. They passed the port around the table alongside The port passed around the table. (Compare The procession passed around the front of the palace, where the Moving role is non-manipulable, and a causative construction is implausible.)

MOTION-c, the TAKE subtype, refers to causing something to be in motion with respect to aLocus, e.g. (i)take, bring, fetch; (ii)send; (iii)move, raise, lift, steal.

These are all transitive verbs with a Causer (normally HUMAN) in A function. Set (i) involves double realization of the Moving role—both A and O NPs normally refer to something in motion, e.g. John (Causer; Moving) brought his dog (Moving) to the party. For sets (ii) and (iii) the Causer need not be Moving but of course the O NP must be.

Most TAKE verbs are like ARRIVE in requiring specification of the Locus. However, take and bring, the transitive correspondents of go and come, have as part of their meaning the specifications ‘to there’ and ‘to here’ respectively, so that there can be omitted after take and here after bring. Fetch is a combination of go (to where something is) and bring (it back to the starting point); again ‘here’ is implied and can be omitted. Send involves a Causer arranging for a Moving thing to go, not normally accompanying it. Here a Locus should be specified, e.g. I sent the cow to market (unless it could be inferred from the preceding discourse, e.g. Have you got in touch with Phoebe yet? Well, I sent a letter (sc. to her) yesterday).

Take, bring, fetch and send may be used with the additional implication of ‘giving’—compare take the pig to market (a destination) with take the pig to/for Mary (for is likely to imply a recipient, and to could mark recipient).

Move may be intransitive or transitive; the former use could be assigned to the ARRIVE subtype, the latter to TAKE. This verb does not denote a general mode of motion (like RUN) but rather motion with respect to various Locuses, e.g. Mary moved from Seattle to Vancouver. Move can be used with a general adverb, or with no overt specification of Locus, e.g. He’s always moving (about), She’s continually moving the furniture (around), but the meaning of the verb still provides a clear implication of ‘from this place to that place to another place ...’ Raise and lift behave similarly.

Steal is a more specific verb, relating to take and transitive move where the Moving role (in O function) refers to something that does not belong to the Causer and should not have been taken/moved by them. Here the focus is on the nature of the referent of the Moving role, and a Locus NP, while often included, is not obligatory, e.g. He stole ten dollars (from Mary’s purse).

REST-c, the PUT subtype, refers to causing something to be at rest at a Locus, e.g. (i) put, place, set, arrange, install, put NP on, sow, plant, fill, load, pack; hide; beach, land, shelve, dump; (ii)leave, desert, abandon, ground, take NP off.

These are also transitive verbs, with the Causer (normally HUMAN) in A and the thing Resting in O function. The Locus must be specified, by a prepositional NP or an adverb, e.g. She put the box down/outside/there/on the table. Some hyponyms of put have Locus specified as part of the meaning of the verb, e.g. land ‘put on land’, beach ‘put on a beach’, shelve ‘put on a shelf’.

Put has an extended meaning in such expressions as put the blame on, put trust in and put a question to, alternatives to simple verbs blame, trust and question.

The transitive verbs leave, desert and abandon involve an intersection of MOTION and REST. They have two senses:

(i) the subject (Moving) goes away, and does not take a person or thing (Resting or conceivably Moving) which they might have been expected to take with them, or else expected to remain with, e.g. John (Moving) abandoned his car (Resting or Moving) on the highway, or Mary (Moving) left her husband (Resting);

(ii) the subject (Moving) goes away from a place (Locus) where they had been for some time and might have been expected to remain longer, e.g. Trotsky left Russia in the twenties.

In (i) the Moving participant has a kind of Causer role (i.e. did not take, did not stay with); this does not apply for (ii).

MOTION-d, the FOLLOW subtype, refers to motion with respect to something which is moving, e.g. (i) follow, track, lead, guide, precede; accompany; (ii) meet.

These are all transitive verbs with the Moving role in A and Locus (typically, also Moving) in O function, e.g. Mbfira tracked the car/Mary, Fred met the train/Jane. Follow has a further sense in which the O NP is a geographical feature extended in space, e.g. They followed the river. A further extension of meaning, applying to both follow and meet, has geographical features in both A and O slots, e.g. That road follows the spur of the hill, Those two rivers meet at the foot of the mountain. Lead may have a variety of non-human NPs in A function, in extensions from its central meaning, e.g. The path/Those tell-tale noises/Her sense of direction led Mary to the robbers’ lair.

Verbs of set (i) are particularly susceptible to omission of the object NP if this is inferrable from the context or from previous dialogue, e.g. You go and I’ll follow (you); I’ll lead (you) and you follow (me). Meet, of set (ii), is typically reciprocal.

An additional non-moving Locus is often specified, but is not obligatory, e.g. John followed Mary (to the cave), John and Mary met (in town).

REST-d, the CONTAIN subtype, describes relative position of two things, both at rest, e.g. contain, enclose, encircle, adjoin; surround.

These verbs are transitive. Both roles are Resting, and each is effectively a Locus with respect to the other; they typically have INANIMATE reference. Adjoin, like meet, is inherently reciprocal. Surround straddles this subtype and also the WRAP subtype of AFFECT.

MOTION-e, the CARRY subtype, refers to motion in juxtaposition with some moving object (prototypically, a person’s hand), e.g. carry, bear, transport, cart.

REST-e, the HOLD subtype, refers to position of rest with respect to, prototypically, a person’s hand, e.g. (i) hold, handle; (ii) grab, grasp, clutch, catch, gather, pick up; capture, trap.

These are all transitive verbs with the Moving/Resting role mapped onto O function. The subject maps a Causer role (normally HUMAN) and the Locus is likely to be some part of the human’s body; the actual body part involved can be specified by a prepositional NP, e.g. John carried/held the banana in/with his hand/teeth. (If no body part is specified it is taken to be the unmarked one—hand for a human, mouth for a dog, etc.)

The carry subtype includes some more specialized verbs whose meaning involves specification of the Locus, e.g. cart ‘carry on a cart’ (cf. land ‘put on land’). Here Causer and Locus are distinct although the Causer will move with the Locus (i.e. John goes with the cart in John carted the potatoes (to market)). (Nowadays, cart is also used to describe carrying something unwieldy or heavy, by any means.)

Whereas hold refers to being in a position of rest in juxtaposition with a person’s body, the verbs in set (ii)—grasp, grab, catch, pick up and the like—refer to something being brought into such a position, e.g. John grabbed/picked up the axe (and then held it tightly).

As with FOLLOW, an additional non-moving Locus may be specified, but is entirely optional, e.g. John held the baby (in the nursery); John carried the baby (to the bathroom). John held/carried the baby are self-sufficient sentences, in the same way that John ran/sat down are.

MOTION-f, the THROW subtype, describes causing something to be in motion, e.g. throw, chuck, Xing, pour, spray, water; push, press; pull, jerk, drag, tug, one sense of draw (e.g. draw sword from scabbard).

These are transitive verbs with the thing Moving as O and the Causer (which need not be moving) as A. The meanings of individual verbs describe both the mode of motion and the way in which it was caused.

As with RUN, a specification of Locus is possible, but quite optional, e.g. Mary pushed the bed (out from the wall) (into the middle of the room) and John threw the javelin (towards the grandstand). (Note that throw and chuck can take an adverb away or out and then have the additional sense of ‘abandon’, e.g. Mary threw away all John’s love letters to her.)

REST-f, the OPEN subtype, refers to causing something to be in a particular position of rest, e.g. open, close, shut (the verb lock appears also to relate to this subtype).

These verbs are used transitively with the thing Resting in O and Causer (normally human or weather) in A function, e.g. John/the wind closed the door. They also occur in what appears to be an intransitive construction, but most examples of this are in fact either copula plus a participial form of the verb (functioning as an adjective, and describing a state), e.g. The door is closed, or else a ‘promotion to subject’ construction, e.g. This door opens easily.

In the literal use of OPEN verbs the thing Resting is limited to a small set of PART nouns, e.g. window, door, lid. The Locus is inferrable from meanings of noun and verb and is unlikely to be stated (The door was shut into the door-frame sounds unbearably pedantic). These verbs, especially in their participial use, also have a metaphorical sense, e.g. His mind is open/closed/ shut to new ideas.

MOTION-g, the DROP subtype, refers to unwanted motion, e.g. fall, drop, spill, tip (over), upset, overturn, capsize, trip, slip.

These verbs may be used intransitively, with the Moving thing in S function. The motion may be due to a combination of natural forces such as gravity (The apple fell from the tree) and weather (The boat overturned in the storm). All DROP verbs, with the sole exception of fall, are also used transitively, with the thing Moving as O. The A NP is Causer—either a natural force responsible for the movement (The storm overturned the boat) or some HUMAN who brought the movement about either through planned action (John deliberately dropped the vase) or—and this is the unmarked circumstance—through miscalculation (John (accidentally) dropped the vase).

It is interesting that fall, perhaps the most common verb of this subtype, is the only member that is exclusively intransitive. (There is the transitive fell but this is only used of trees—and, sometimes, people—and refers to deliberate action, whereas fall normally describes uncontrolled motion towards the ground.)

Locus NP(s) may be added, but are not obligatory, e.g. The milk spilt (out of the jug) (onto the ground).