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Reflexive verbs can have a variety of uses and meanings, which often escape consistent classification. Some language-common identified uses are outlined below. [4] For example, Davies et al. [2] identify 12 uses for Spanish reflexive constructions, while Vinogradov [5] divides Russian reflexive verbs into as many as 16 groups.
A transitive verb is a verb that entails one or more transitive objects, for example, 'enjoys' in Amadeus enjoys music. This contrasts with intransitive verbs , which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' in Beatrice arose .
In the example, the verbs romper, hundir and derretir are all transitive; they become intransitive by using the pseudo-reflexive clitic, and the direct object becomes the intransitive subject. Ambiguity may arise between these and true reflexive forms, especially when the intransitive subject is animate (and therefore a possible agent).
This synthetic passive morpheme can attach to transitive, ditransitive and some intransitive verbs. [26] The word order in Japanese is more flexible so passive sentences can be both SOV (subject + object + verb) and OSV (object + subject + verb) order; however, SOV is typically used more often. [ 25 ]
Intransitive verbs are directly impersonalized by the use of the nonactive stem, while transitive verbs must first fill their object prefix positions with the appropriate nonreferential prefixes before the use of the nonactive stem, and reflexive verbs take the nonreferential reflexive prefix ne-, [1]: 170–175 [2]: 144–145 e.g.
Ergative verbs are verbs that can be transitive or intransitive without morphological change, while paired verbs are verbs that require morphological changes in order to be read as transitive or intransitive. [26] An example of an ergative verb in Japanese is shown below in examples (18) and (19):
In many languages, including English, some or all intransitive verbs can entail cognate objects—objects formed from the same roots as the verbs themselves; for example, the verb sleep is ordinarily intransitive, but one can say, "He slept a troubled sleep", meaning roughly "He slept, and his sleep was troubled."
Often there is a semantic difference between the intransitive and transitive forms of a verb: the water is boiling versus I boiled the water; the grapes grew versus I grew the grapes. In these examples, known as ergative verbs, the role of the subject differs between intransitive and transitive verbs.