Wednesday calls for another journey into the “Grammar Walks into a Bar” series. Got your adult beverage?
Intransitive. Referring to verbs. Meaning not transitive. Cool. What’s the deal? Is this joke even funny? I think this one falls more on the side of “clever.” If you’re already nodding in agreement, great. If you need some more background, you’re not alone.
If you took Spanish for any length of time you probably ran into this concept of transitive vs. intransitive verbs. And it likely confused you. I’d venture to guess it’s because, like me, you never learned it in English. But there you were learning it in Spanish, on-the-fly, wondering why on earth it even matters.
I’ve come to have a whole lot of respect for language teachers (especially in US high schools) because they willingly take on the impossible task of teaching kids a completely foreign language, in addition to their own (i.e., English)! Plus, rarely is their audience actually attentive or grateful. It’s kind of a shit gig… or if that’s too strong, one where you don’t always see the “fruit” of your labor.
Back in Spanish class, the whole transitive vs. intransitive thing had to do with whether the verb was referring to a direct object. For example, when you sneeze, you just sneeze. Logically, there’s not a direct object or direct receiver of the action. Same goes for verbs like sleep, sit, and die. That’s the definition of an intransitive verb. No direct object. Can stand on its own. It’s the same in Spanish and English.
Logic dictates that a transitive verb have a direct object then, yes? Yes. And strangely enough, if you look up the word transitive (and go to the non-grammar-related definition), it’s about logic. If X (a horse) is bigger than Y (a dog), which is bigger than Z (a mouse), you know that X (the horse) is bigger than Z (the mouse). X (horse) and Z (mouse) demonstrate the transitive property. I believe that harkens back to the ol’ chain rule from logic proofs in math class. (They were one of the few things I was naturally good at because they didn’t involve insane equations and calculations.) A transitive verb needs an object to make sense. It needs to exert its action on something, or else it’s not a complete thought (i.e., it doesn’t make sense). Think about the verb to welcome. “She welcomed.” What? Who? Huh? Welcome is not an intransitive verb like sneeze because it doesn’t make sense without an object. Welcome must be transitive.
“She welcomed Sam into her home.” Sam is the direct object of the action. Sam is necessary to form a complete thought.
“She regularly welcomes stray dogs and cats into her home.” Direct object(s)? Dogs and cats.
“She welcomed the feedback so she could improve her website.” The feedback is now the direct object.
Make sense? Welcome is a transitive verb—it requires a direct object. Sneeze is an intransitive verb—it’s impossible for a direct object to follow. To beat the dead horse, a verb with no direct object is intransitive, while a verb with a direct object is transitive.
With all this talk of direct objects, you might be wondering about indirect objects. Indeed, they exist.
“She built a house.” She is the subject of the sentence—she performed the action. The house is the direct object of the sentence.
But what if… “She built a house for Sam?” The house continues to be the direct object, but now the sentence has an indirect object—Sam.
An indirect object is always a noun, and a direct object must exist before an indirect object can exist. (House is a thing and it existed in the sentence before Sam). An indirect object receives the direct object of the sentence. (Sam received the built house from her.) A direct object answers the question what or whom. She built what? A house. An indirect object answers the question to or for what/whom. For Sam.
We don’t need to fall down this rabbit hole, but the discussion leads seamlessly into pronouns. What if we wanted to to remove the direct object (house) and replace it with a direct object pronoun? Don’t freak out. All we’re doing is saying, “She built it for Sam.” We can do the same with the indirect object—get rid of Sam and replace it with an indirect object pronoun. “She built it for him.” You guys are rockstars.
And this, friends, is why Spanish was a bit confusing. Because all this grammar crap actually matters and it helps significantly to understand what it’s all about in English first!
Ella construyó una casa = She built a house. Built is transitive; house is the direct object.
Ella la construyó = She built it. “La” is the direct object pronoun referring to the house.
Ella le construyó a Sam una casa = She built Sam a house. “Le” is the indirect object pronoun referring to Sam. (Remember the “personal a” in Spanish? There it is.)
Ella la construyó para él = She built it for him.
Or, if you want to get loco and combine ALL THE THINGS, here goes:
A ella le debo todo = I owe her everything.
I is the subject, owe is the verb (transitive), her is the direct object pronoun.
Se lo debo a ella = I owe it to her.
I is the subject, owe is the verb (transitive), it is the direct object pronoun, and her is the indirect object pronoun. [This example is extra fun because you can see what happens in Spanish when you combine a direct object pronoun with an indirect object pronoun (se lo).]
Lastly, surprise surprise, verbs can be sneaky in any language. Much like our intransitive verb friends who are the subject of this post, “They sit. They converse. They Depart.” think about the old Latin phrase “Vini. Vidi. Vinci.” or “I came. I saw. I conquered.” As such, these are intransitive verbs. They can stand on their own without a direct object. But what about the verb to see or conquer? What did you see? What did you conquer? I saw the armies fighting. I conquered my my fears. Well guess what? Saw and conquer just went from intransitive to transitive because of the direct objects “armies” and “fears.” And that’s totally cool. Many verbs can be both intransitive (in) or transitive (tr). And the truth is, most of them are.
He left (in). // He left the gift on the table (tr).
She sang sweetly (in). // She sang the National Anthem at the baseball game (tr).
Joe gave up (in). // Joe gave up coffee for Lent (tr).
By now I hope you’ve ordered a second or third drink because we went kinda deep. Who knew grammar jokes could get so heady? Good thing they’re also bar jokes.
P.S. If anyone catches errors in this (or any Grammar Joke Bob post), please use the comments and let me know. All this drinking has got me…
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Grammar joke from: The Foo at bar.com
Blog image from: https://www.theschoolrun.com/what-are-transitive-and-intransitive-verbs
Last Spanish examples borrowed from: https://www.realfastspanish.com/grammar/spanish-transitive-verbs