Atransitive verb is averb that entails one or moretransitive objects, for example, 'enjoys' inAmadeus enjoys music. This contrasts withintransitive verbs, which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' inBeatrice arose.

Transitivity is traditionally thought of as a global property of a clause, by which activity is transferred from anagent to apatient.^[1]

Transitive verbs can be classified by the number of objects they require. Verbs that entail only twoarguments, asubject and a singledirect object, are monotransitive. Verbs that entail two objects, a direct object and an indirect object, areditransitive,^[2] or less commonlybitransitive.^[3] An example of a ditransitive verb in English is the verbto give, which may feature a subject, an indirect object, and a direct object:John gave Mary the book.

Verbs that take three objects aretritransitive.^[4] In English a tritransitive verb features an indirect object, a direct object, and aprepositional phrase – as inI'll trade you this bicycle for your binoculars – or else aclause that behaves like an argument – as inI bet you a pound that he has forgotten.^[5] Not alldescriptive grammars recognize tritransitive verbs.^[6]

Aclause with a prepositional phrase that expresses a meaning similar to that usually expressed by an object may be calledpseudo-transitive. For example, theIndonesian sentencesDia masuk sekolah ("He attended school") andDia masuk ke sekolah ("He went into the school") have the same verb (masuk "enter"), but the first sentence has a direct object while the second has a prepositional phrase in its place.^[7] A clause with a direct object plus a prepositional phrase may be calledpseudo-ditransitive, as in theLakhota sentenceHaŋpíkčeka kiŋ lená wé-čage ("I made those moccasins for him").^[8] Such constructions are sometimes calledcomplex transitive. The category of complex transitives includes not only prepositional phrases but alsodependent clauses,appositives, and other structures.^[9] There is some controversy regarding complex transitives and tritransitives; linguists disagree on the nature of the structures.

In contrast to transitive verbs, some verbs take zero objects. Verbs that do not require an object are calledintransitive verbs. An example in modern English is the verbto arrive.

Verbs that can be used in an intransitive or transitive way are calledambitransitive verbs. In English, an example is the verbto eat; the sentencesYou eat (with an intransitive form) andYou eat apples (a transitive form that hasapples as the object) are both grammatical.

The concept ofvalency is related totransitivity. The valency of a verb considers all the arguments the verb takes, including both the subject and all of the objects. In contrast to valency, the transitivity of a verb only considers the objects.Subcategorization is roughlysynonymous with valency, though they come from different theoretical traditions.

Transitive phrases, i.e. phrases containing transitive verbs, were first recognized by thestoics and from thePeripatetic school, but they probably referred to the whole phrase containing the transitive verb, not just to the verb.^[10][11] The advancements of the stoics were later developed by the philologists of theAlexandrian school.^[10]

Traditionally, transitivity patterns are thought of aslexical information of the verb, but recent research inconstruction grammar and related theories has argued that transitivity is a grammatical rather than a lexical property, since the same verb very often appears with different transitivity in different contexts.^{[citation needed]} Consider:

• Does your dogbite? (no object)
• The catbit him. (one object)
• Can youbite me off a piece of banana? (two objects)
• The vasebroke. (no object;anticausative construction)
• Shebroke the toothpick. (one object)
• Can youbreak me some toothpicks for my model castle? (two objects)
• Stop me before Ibuy again. (no object;antipassive construction)
• The manbought a ring. (one object)
• The manbought his wife a ring. (two objects)

In grammatical construction theories, transitivity is considered as an element ofgrammatical construction, rather than an inherent part of verbs.^[12][13]

The following sentences exemplify transitive verbs in English.

• We're going toneed a bigger boat.
• You need tofill in this form.
• Hang on, I'llhave it ready in a minute.
• The professortook off his spectacles.

In some languages, morphological features separate verbs based on theirtransitivity, which suggests this is a salientlinguistic feature. For example, inJapanese:

However, the definition of transitive verbs as those with one object is not universal, and is not used in grammars of many languages.

Hungarian is sometimes misunderstood to have transitive and intransitive conjugation for all verbs, but there is really only one general conjugation.In present and future, there is a lesser used variant – a definite, or say emphatic conjugation form. It is used only when referring to a previous sentence, or topic, where the object was already mentioned. Logically the definite articlea(z) as reference is used here—and due to verb emphasis (definite), word order changes to VO.

• If one does not want to be definite, once can simply say:

házat látok — I see (a) house – (general)

látom a házat — I see the house – (The house we were looking for)

almát eszem — I eat (an) apple – (general)

eszem az almát — I eat the apple – (The one mom told me to)

bort iszom — I drink wine – (general)

iszom a bort — I drink the wine – (That you offered me before)

In English, one would say 'I do see the house', etc., stressing the verb – in Hungarian, the object is emphasized – but both mean exactly the same thing.

In thePingelapese language, transitive verbs are used in one of four of their most common sentence structures. Transitive verbs according to this language have two main characteristics. These characteristics are action verbs and the sentence must contain a direct object. To elaborate, an action verb is a verb that has a physical action associated to its meaning. The sentence must contain a direct object meaning there must be a recipient of said verb. Two entities must be involved when using a transitive sentence. There is also a fixed word order associated with transitive sentences: subject-transitive verb-object.^[14] For example:

Linda (Subject)e aesae (transitive verb) Adino (object) This sentence translates to, Linda knows Adino.^[14]

It is generally accepted inPolish grammar that transitive verbs are those that:^{[15][16][17][18]}

• Entail adirect object (which is in theaccusative, or, for a few verbs,instrumental case in non-negated sentences, and in thegenitive case in negated sentences)
  OR
• Can undergo passive transformation

For example, the verbwidzieć (to see) is transitive because it satisfies both conditions:

Maria widzi Jana (Mary sees John;Jana is the accusative form ofJan)
Jan jest widziany przez Marię (John is seen by Mary)

• Morphosyntactic alignment