The students rested. Mary laughed. The visitors from El Paso arrived

The students rested. Mary laughed. The visitors from El Paso arrived.

An intransitive verb has no complement – no noun phrase or adjectival in the slot following the verb.

You are likely to find adverbial information though.

Ex. The students rested after their long trip.Mary laughed loudly.The visitors from El Paso finally arrived at the

airport.

Intransitive verbs can (or might) create a specific rhetorical effect when used intentionally and repetitively.

The nature of “intransivity” itself can be slow, watchful, tranquil, or quiet, but it might also be melancholy or even matter-of-fact.

Regardless, analytical readers pay attention to repetition and variation, and this is one verb with your time.

Adverbial slots can appear in all sentence patterns.

Most sentences require information beyond the basics.

It is still a rhetorical choice.

Ex. We marched.

With optional adv. slot…

We marched through the grass and jungle and rain.

Our most common adverbials are simple adverbs like suddenly, quickly, here, soon, always, sometimes and prepositional phrases like at the deli, on Saturday night, or for some bagels.

Phrasal verbs are common structures in English.

Phrasal verbs are a combination of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meaning of its parts.

It is a set expression that acts as a unit…they do not need a complement and they will not allow for an object.

We made up. We turned in at midnight. They union finally gave in to the

company demands. Tony will pull through. My favorite slippers are wore out. We turned up. The party broke up.

Brainstorm a list of transitive verbs.

What’s the feeling? What tone do they evoke? What are they good for? What scenes

might they describe? Why might a writer use intransitive verbs?

John hit Bob. The little girl kissed the boy on the

face. Sally baked a cookie for her teacher. The student hit his head off his desk. Mrs. Hilliard hugged a student.