0

When I look up the word, it should be an intransitive verb (no object). However, I'm still curious about the title "Cry me a river". Can I say that "I cried a bucket"?

j.free
  • 69
  • What do the dictionaries say? – bib Aug 26 '14 at 03:23
  • 2
    @bib How on earth would a dictionary be able to help with such a query? – WS2 Aug 26 '14 at 06:04
  • 3
    I lack the grammatical chops to properly cite or defend this statement, so I'm going to leave it as a comment, but: I don't think it's the verb "cry" there that's doing something special. I think it's the construction " me", which expands to " *for me". As in "Swim me a lap* in five seconds" or "*Die me a death* that will be remembered forever". – Dan Bron Aug 26 '14 at 10:26
  • 2
    @WS2 ODO says: [OBJECT] Shed tears, especially as an expression of distress or pain: don’t cry—it’ll be all right; [WITH OBJECT]: you’ll cry tears of joy. It obviously can be transitive. – bib Aug 26 '14 at 12:02
  • 3
    @DanBron have this fine pile of grammatical chops: "a Benefactive construction, which uses for instead of to, identifies someone for whose benefit something is done. This can be added to any sentence, transitive or intransitive. In precisely those situations where the Benefactive object of for ends up possessing the direct object, the sentences can undergo Dative; in those cases where they don't, they can't." – RegDwigнt Aug 26 '14 at 20:32
  • @Reg, Nice find! Should we mark this as a dupe then? – Dan Bron Aug 26 '14 at 20:34
  • @Dan Nah. I think it starts off dupish, but ends up asking something else. I think. Actually I am not quite sure what it ends up asking. – RegDwigнt Aug 26 '14 at 20:35
  • 3
    Cry in Cry me a river is ditransitive. – Jasper Locke Aug 26 '14 at 21:47
  • @JasperLocke quite right :) – Araucaria - Him Aug 26 '14 at 23:35
  • So, is it asking for someone to cry (for) me as much as a river? and Die (for) me a death that will be remembered forever? – j.free Aug 29 '14 at 12:54
  • @Jasper Locke. I'd analyse it differently, with 'a river' being a measure phrase (cf cost me a fortune), and thus not a DO. See John Lawler's comment at 'Is this a direct object or predicate complement?. * A river was cried [for] me by ... – Edwin Ashworth Jun 25 '15 at 18:34

3 Answers3

4

It's generally makes more sense to say that clauses and not verbs are transitive or intransitive. However, this won't stop dictionaries or grammar books for language and linguistics students giving lists of verbs that they'll describe as 'transitive' or 'intransitive'. Having said that, it's also true that whether a clause is transitive or not is also contentious at times - because what is meant by transitive is not clearly defined. Because this is so, people often start arguing about it at cross-purposes.

The fact is that many verbs tend to take objects, predicative complements and all sorts of combinations of different types of complement. However, they only tend to. There are actually very few verbs that are only transitive or intransitive. These labels normally just describe a typical usage.

I sometimes say things like "If someone wants to use an object with this kind of verb, then they really don't understand the true meaning of the verb in the first place". The verb I often give as an example, is the verb die. Usually, if language learners, for example, want to use an object with the verb die, it's because they really want to convey the meaning of kill.

However, although die might seem a very (sic) intransitive verb, it can still be used perfectly well transitively in phrases such as he died a horrible death - as one of my students quite rightly pointed out to me. Most any verb that you can think of that seems intransitive can be used transitively, and the same goes for the other way round too. Almost any so-called transitive verb can be used in-transitively. Take the word give, a verb that is often wheeled out as an example of a transitive verb. We still find, of course, phrases such as:

  • I'm fed up of just giving, giving, giving all the time.

Idioms, in particular, very often make use of complementation patterns that are idiosyncratic. In some ways the more unusual they are, the stronger effect they have. I have no statistical evidence, but I would wager that idiomatic usages have far more examples of 'transitive' verbs used intransitively and vice verse than other sentences.

In terms of cry me a bucket, I think everyone would understand that metaphor, whether or not they recognised it as an idiom in its own right. For sure, you could also say:

  • cry me a waterfall/ crocodile tear/ ocean/ vodka martini / dustbowl

and it would work as some kind of metaphor without there being any grammatical issue (though your literary ability might let you in for a kicking if it's as poor as mine).

So, my advice is to transitively smile a huge smile, and wonder at the weirdness of language. [ - including the fact that weirdness patently has the 'i' and the 'e' the wrong way round - but that's another topic ..]

Hope this helps!

Araucaria - Him
  • 47,146
  • How can a clause be transitive? – Jasper Locke Aug 26 '14 at 21:49
  • @JasperLocke Here's a shorter more digestible one. It's from a dictionary of grammatical terms, so only read the bit under Transitivity. (I accidentally read the whole page thinking what's this got to do with transitivity?) transitivity – Araucaria - Him Aug 27 '14 at 18:23
  • 2
    After a bit of mulling it over in my head, I came the other day upon a good verb to use as an almost-totally-intransitive one: faint. It’s perfectly idiomatic to say, “He died a horrible death”, but even with the best of efforts, I cannot get “She fainted a violent faint/fall/crunch/etc.” to sound idiomatic. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 28 '14 at 23:27
  • 1
    @JanusBahsJacquet I might steal that, if I may? (for the odd TEFL class that is) – Araucaria - Him Aug 28 '14 at 23:31
  • Go right ahead. :-) – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 28 '14 at 23:31
  • If by 'clauses and not verbs are transitive or intransitive' you mean 'verbs can only be considered to be used transitively or intransitively in given sentences', I think we'd all agree. And I agree that even then, individual usages can be hard to classify: I've seen 'The piano had a stool' cited as involving a DO, and not, by different analysts. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 25 '15 at 18:15
  • @EdwinAshworth The weirdest I've seen is H&P calling five pounds a DO in it weighed five pounds. Never been able to fathom that one... – Araucaria - Him Jun 25 '15 at 18:20
  • 1
    I once came across a respected (till then) authority classifying 'she led him a merry dance' as a ditransitive usage. It's form over function. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 25 '15 at 18:28
1

How intransitive can it be:

"He cried crocodile tears." appears to have a direct object.

Gary's Student
  • 6,747
-1

The essential point to hold onto here is that a transitive verb transposes the action from the subject to the object and therefore needs an object. That's what the 'trans' part means- across. More practically, the action of a verb can change the object it acts upon or not, and that's really the acid test. Think about an example such as, 'He ate a sandwich'. Clearly, the sandwich isn't in the same form after being eaten and so the action of eating is transitive here. What about 'He stood on the table'? The table is in no way affected by the action so stood is intransitive. You can also imagine the sentence being spoken by someone entering a room with no prior context. If it makes sense then it's probably an intransitive verb. 'I've just kicked the....' This clearly needs an object to make sense so kicked must be transitive here. 'Listen!' Listen must be intransitive whereas 'Can you hear the...' Hear must be transitive. Grammar is very often practical rather than just a sense of meaningless rules when you get into it.

Rug
  • 1