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What are transitive verbs?

To firstly understand what transitive verbs are, we have to understand what a DIRECT OBJECT is, because throughout the explanation process, we shall include direct objects as a way of breaking down (clearing up) the understanding of transitive verbs.
  • So, what is a direct object in grammar?
Direct Object or simply “D.O” is either a noun (Jeff, Rosanna, Carlos, bag, squirrel…), pronoun (me, her, him...) or a noun phrase (the cars, the yellow mango, that umbrella my grandfather purchased in December...) that identifies what or who receives an action of a transitive verb.

 Now that we all already understand what an O.D is, it’s time to go back to the definition of what a transitive verb might be.
Transitive verbs are verbs; of course; that accept direct objects. It’s quite easy to identify a transitive verb in English as it might be easier in other languages. Furthermore, if you want to find out whether a verb is transitive or not, you can start off by using the "WH-questions" ‘WHO’ or ‘WHAT’ after any verb’s placement.
  • Let’s take a thorough look at the following example:
  1. My mother bought some yummy Pop-Tarts.
Let’s break this sentence above down: my mother (noun phrase); bought (past tense and past participle of ‘buy’); some yummy Pop-Tarts (Direct Object). Ok, done! So now, after the verb we have a D.O which is a thing. Therefore, we’ll use “WHAT” to ask the question.
So now, let’s rewrite the sentence above and then ask ourselves the question “WHAT” in the post position of the verb.

 << My mother bought { WHAT? } some yummy Pop-Tarts>> So, here, the direct question ‘WHAT’ is clearly answered by “some yummy Pop-Tarts, so, in a nutshell, the verb “TO BUY” is a transitive verb.
All in all, transitive verbs are the ones that accept  direct objects in a complete sentence. Moreover, it’s also noteworthy and important to hammer home that in English most verbs are transitive.

I hope this post has helped you out to understand the usage and definition of TRANSITIVE VERBS.

 Tschuss! Take care!😉


Teacher Benny @ PBC--The Department of Scientific English Language

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