Transitivity and causatives  

Some languages have a strict division of verbs into transitive—those that take A (transitive subject) and O (transitive object) core syntactic relations—and intransitive—those that have just one core syntactic relation, S (intransitive subject). A few languages even employ morphological marking so that there can never be any doubt as to whether a verb is transitive or intransitive, e.g. if a verb in Fijian shows a transitive suffix then it must have an object; if it lacks this suffix there will be no direct object.

Transitivity is a much more fluid matter in English. There are, it is true, a number of verbs that are strictly transitive, e.g. like, promote, recognize, inform, and a few that are strictly intransitive, e.g. arrive, chat, matter. But many verbs in English may be used either transitively or intransitively.

There are two kinds of correspondence between the syntactic relations of intransitive and transitive constructions:

i. those for which S = A, e.g. She’s following (us), Have you eaten (lunch)?, He’s knitting (a jumper), I won (the game);

ii. those for which S = O, e.g. The ice melted/Ivan melted the ice, Mary’s arm hurts/John hurt Mary’s arm, Fred tripped up/Jane tripped up Fred, Tim is working hard/Tim’s boss is working him hard.

If the transitive version is taken as prior for (i), then we can say that the intransitive version is obtained by omitting the object, and that this is possible for some—but not all—transitive verbs in English. If the intransitive construction is taken as prior for (ii), then we can say that the transitive is a causative version of the intransitive, with the original S becoming O and a ‘Causer’ introduced in A relation.

There is also the matter of prepositions. Some transitive verbs may optionally insert a preposition before the direct object, e.g. He kicked (at) the door, She bit (on) the strap. Is the original object NP still an object when it is now preceded by a preposition? Some verbs may omit the preposition before a peripheral constituent, either before a ‘measure phrase’, e.g. run ( for) a mile, stand ( for) two hours in the rain, or before a non-measure phrase, e.g. jump (over) the ravine, speak (in) French. Are measure phrases like a mile and two hours, or non-measure phrases like the ravine and French, now in direct object function? (Note that in each instance the inclusion or omission of a preposition has a definite semantic effect.)

There are a number of verbs that must take a preposition, and this behaves in some ways as if it were an ‘inherent’ part of the verb; a following NP will have many of the characteristics of a direct object, e.g. rely on, hope for. Related to this are ‘phrasal verbs’, combinations of verb and preposition that have meaning (and syntax) not inferrable from those of the two components, e.g. take after, put off.