SILGLOBALGlossary of
Linguistic Terms

Glossary term T

Transitivity

Definition

Transitivity is the number of objects a verb requires or takes in a given instance.

Discussion

Transitivity is sometimes expressed as a grammatical category by means of verb morphology.

Kinds

More specific concepts within transitivity.

Ditransitivity Intransitivity Transitive Verb

See also

Valency Object Verb (Linguistics) Grammatical Category

Sources 3

  1. Crystal 1985, 316
  2. Mish 1991, 1254
  3. Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik 1985, 53
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