 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.