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In linguistics, transitivity is a property of verbs that relates to whether a verb can take direct objects and how many such objects a verb can take. It is closely related to valency, which considers other verb arguments in addition to direct objects. The obligatory noun phrases and prepositional phrases determine how many arguments a predicate has. Obligatory elements are considered arguments while optional ones are never counted in the list of arguments.〔Carnie, Andrew. "Subcategories of Verbs." Syntax: A Generative Introduction. Blackwell Publishing, Ltd. 2013. Print. 03 Oct. 2013.〕 Traditional grammar makes a binary distinction between intransitive verbs that cannot take a direct object (such as ''fall'' or ''sit'' in English) and transitive verbs that take one direct object (such as ''throw'', ''injure'', ''kiss'' in English). In practice, many languages (including English) interpret the category more flexibly, allowing: ditransitive verbs, verbs that have two objects; or even ambitransitive verbs, verbs that can be used as both a transitive verb and an intransitive verb. Further, some verbs may be idiomatically transitive, while, technically, intransitive. This may be observed in the verb ''walk'' in the idiomatic expression ''To walk the dog''. In functional grammar, transitivity is considered to be a ''continuum'' rather than a binary category as in traditional grammar. The "continuum" view takes a more semantic approach. One way it does this is by taking into account the degree to which an action affects its object (so that the verb ''see'' is described as having "lower transitivity" than the verb ''kill''). ==Formal analysis== Many languages, such as Hungarian, mark transitivity through morphology; transitive verbs and intransitive verbs behave in distinctive ways. In languages with polypersonal agreement, an intransitive verb will agree with its subject only, while a transitive verb will agree with both subject and direct object. In other languages the distinction is based on syntax. It is possible to identify an intransitive verb in English, for example, by attempting to supply it with an appropriate direct object: *''He kissed '' — transitive verb. *''She injured '' — transitive verb. *'' did you throw?'' — transitive verb. By contrast, an intransitive verb coupled with a direct object will result in an ungrammatical utterance: * * * * Conversely (at least in a traditional analysis), using a transitive verb in English without a direct object will result in an incomplete sentence: *''I kissed'' (. . .) *''You injured'' (. . .) *''Where is she now?'' * English is unusually lax by Indo-European standards in its rules on transitivity; what may appear to be a transitive verb can be used as an intransitive verb, and vice versa. ''Eat'' and ''read'' and many other verbs can be used either transitively or intransitively. Often there is a semantic difference between the intransitive and transitive forms of a verb: ''the water is boiling'' versus ''I boiled the water''; ''the grapes grew'' versus ''I grew the grapes''. In these examples, known as ergative verbs, the role of the subject differs between intransitive and transitive verbs. Even though an intransitive verb may not take a ''direct'' object, it often may take an appropriate indirect object: *''I laughed '' What are considered to be intransitive verbs can also take cognate objects, where the object is considered integral to the action, for example ''I slept an hour''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Transitivity (grammar)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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