transitiver

Transitiver is a linguistic term used to describe a verb that selects a direct object to complete its meaning. In many grammars this role is simply labeled as a transitive verb, but some authors adopt transitiver as an explicit category name within typology or computational lexicons. The core property of a transitiver is valency two: a subject or agent acts on an object or patient.

The word is formed from the Latin root transitivus with the agentive English suffix -er, and it appears primarily in descriptive grammars, language description projects, and some corpus-oriented resources. It is not universally adopted as the standard label for transitive verbs, but it serves as an explicit marker of object-taking behavior in certain theoretical or computational frameworks.

Syntactically, transitivers typically appear in constructions with a subject and a direct object, following the language’s usual word order or case system. Many languages mark the object overtly through case marking or agreement, while others rely on syntactic position in an SVO or similar structure. Some verbs are ambitransitive, functioning as transitivers in some contexts (with a direct object) and intransitives in others (without an object).

Cross-linguistic variation means the prominence and marking of transitiver behavior can differ: some languages have clear transitive paradigms with extensive object marking, while others integrate transitivity more fluidly into verb morphology or syntax. See also transitive verb, valency, ambitransitive, and ditransitive for related concepts.