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Noun phrases are not the only constituents of made of up of various combinations of phrases and even clauses. The verb phrase also allows a range of combinations. Thus, clauses are categorized as intransitive, transitive, copular, and ditransitive, depending on how many argument noun phrases or clauses, if any, follow the verb.
Dogs bark.
A wolf howled mournfully.
The lonely ploughman talked to the cows.
None of these three contain a verb directly followed by an object. Here is a constituent tree for the sentence about the cow:
Clauses like these, in which the verbs do not take objects, are called "intransitive clauses ".The verbs are said to be used intransitively. Transitive are clauses in which lowing are all examples of transitive clauses:
The panther climbed the tree.
The mayor rejected the petitions.
Dr. Faustus knew that Helen was unreliable.
But not all clauses with a sequence of a verb followed by a noun phrase are transitive clauses.
Consider this clause in which the verb is followed by a noun phrase:
Esmeralda arrived the next day.
The noun phrase "the next day" is a time noun phrase that could be shifted to the beginning of the clause. It is not part of a verb phrase whose head is "arrived", and it is not an argument of the predicate ARRIVE. It is thus not a daughter of the verb phrase.
The clause is an intransitive clause and there is no sister slot for an object. Transitive clauses, however, have an object position after the main verb. The noun phrases verbs "climbed" and "rejected" in the previous two examples are objects of their verb phrases.
One useful way to test whether a clause is transitive is to see whether it has a passive counterpart. Look at these pairs of examples:
The panther climbed the tree.
The tree was climbed by the panther.
The mayor rejected the petitions.
The petitions were rejected by the mayor.
The first clause in each pair is a transitive clause. Only transitive clauses have passive voice counterparts. See what happens when we try to form a passive voice clause corresponding to the intransitive clause with the time noun phrase:
Esmeralda arrived the next day.
The next day was arrived by Esmeralda.
Unlike the noun phrase objects in the other examples, "the next day" cannot be the subject of the passive voice clause. In the active voice clause it isn't the object of the verb phrase. Phrases like "the next day" are optional constituents known as "adjuncts". Adjuncts are more freely moved than are required constituents. Thus the next day can be shifted to the front of the clause:
The next day Esmeralda arrived.
The passive voice test is probably the most reliable way to check whether an active voice clause is transitive or intransitive. In the next section we'll examine another kind of clause that looks like a transitive clause but isn't. Again we'll apply the passive test.
