Verbs: Difference Between Copulative, Transitive, and Intransitive Verbs

Verbs. A Sentence must have, at very least, a subject and a verb in order to be grammatically considered a "sentence." In every sentence, the verb holds the most importance. In the case of the Imperative "mood" (of the four purposive classifications of mood: declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentence), that is the only word with any actual weight in the sentence.  In many cases of the commanding imperative mood, the verb is the only word on the page.

Here are some examples: Go get your brother. Finish your dinner. Stop.  Eat your vegetables. Shut up.

Here is what is to be understood in these five sentences:

("YOU") Go get your brother. ("YOU") Finish your dinner. ("YOU") Stop. ("YOU") Eat your vegetables. ("YOU") Shut up.

The subject is the implied "You."  The only necessary and gravitational word in all of these sentences is the verb. The verb states the action in the sentence or casts the subject an overall "state of being" (mood). Most importantly, the verb allows the subject to make a statement, and this is the case in every sentence,  whether it be of any grammatical mood.  Accordingly, the verb is the most important word (or group of words) in any sentence.

For sake of this article, however, let's distinguish between the Copulative (or linking), Transitive (characterized by or involving transition), and Intransitive (indicates complete action without accompaniment) verbs.

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The Copulative Verb

Copulative verbs link the subject to the complement, the adjectives or nouns that refer back to the subject. These sentences do not contain direct objects, but rather are completed by a complement. Here are some examples:

That dog is stinky. (copulative verb: is; the predicate adjective serves as the complement)

That dog is one stinky mutt. (same copulative verb; the predicate nominative or predicate noun, mutt, provides the complement)

That sweater looks good on you.

Good, here, is an example of a complement of a compliment; or even a compliment within a complement: The noun, Sweater, is the subject. Though the noun, you, here is an indirect object (of the preposition on), the complement of the verb looks is the predicate adjective good.

NOTE: With the Copulative Verb and this sentence structure, here is a perfect determinate: the sentence will retain its meaning if the subject (in this case, that dog) and the predicate adjective (stinky) or the predicate nominative (one stinky mutt) can be switched and the sentence will retain the same meaning.

Example: That stinky dog is the oldest in the kennel. Or The oldest in the kennel is that stinky dog.   No matter in which order they are placed, the meaning is the same.

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The Transitive Verb

This involves transition as it requires a direct object: the focus transitions from the subject to the object according to the verb. For sake of uniformity, we will follow suit with the stinky dog:

I saw the stinky dog.

Saw is the transitive verb in need of a direct object, dog.

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Intransitive Verb

An intransitive verb does not have a direct object.

That pet stinks.

The complete subject, that pet, is the "doer" of the verb, stinks, yet there is no direct object which can follow the verb.

The verb, stinks, is the Intransitive verb of this sentence; there can be no complement, and this is no form of a compliment either.

However, this sentence could very well possess adverbs or prepositional phrases to modify them:

For example, "The odor of that ugly pet stinks worse than anything I have ever before come across for all the years in my entire life," yet the subject and the verb will remain the same.

The Intransitive verb is a verb or verb construction that does not require and cannot take a direct object. Here is another example:

The dog smiled.

Smile is the intransitive verb, and dog is the subject.

However, this sentence can take an indirect object:

The dog smiled at me.

The indirect object, me, is the object of the preposition at. The rest of the sentence is the same as above.

Moving on, let's combine these:

I saw the stinky dog and the dog smiled.

There is a compound sentence combining one sentence with a transitive verb (needs a direct object) with an intransitive verb (does not take a direct object). We will cover compound sentences in another article, but try to itemize the subjects of these sentences, then the verbs, and note the one direct object (of the transitive verb).