intransitiva

Intransitiva, in linguistics, refers to verbs that do not take a direct object to complete their meaning. A one-place predicate has only the subject as its core argument; the action or state is complete without a patient entity. This contrasts with transitive verbs, which require a direct object to complete the clause.

By contrast, transitive verbs require a direct object to express a complete proposition. Some verbs are ambitransitive and can be used either transitively or intransitively, depending on context and language. For example, in English, sleep is intransitive ("She sleeps"), while eat is typically transitive ("She eats bread") but can be intransitive in "She eats."

Examples of intransitive verbs include those of motion or change of state: arrive, go, sleep, die, appear, disappear, grow. Intransitive clauses often express a state, a location change, or an event that does not directly affect a present object. Many languages also distinguish transitivity morphologically or syntactically, and some verbs can alternate between transitive and intransitive forms across languages or dialects.

Cross-linguistic perspective shows that languages commonly classify verbs by valency—an abstraction of how many arguments a verb requires. Intransitive verbs are typically monovalent, needing only a subject, while transitive verbs are divalent, requiring a subject and a direct object. Some languages exhibit richer systems where valency interacts with word order, morphology, or agreement.

The study of intransitiva is central to theories of argument structure and predicate-argument relations, aiding explanations of how different languages encode who acts on what and how these relations are reflected in grammar.