Timeline for in the sentence '"You're absolutely right," agreed Jake,' does 'agree' functions as a transitive verb or an intransitive?
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| Mar 9 at 16:54 | comment | added | BillJ | I'm afraid I don't agree. Changing the construction does change the analysis, though there's still no direct object. In your new example, the direct speech is embedded, as opposed to non-embedded as in your previous example. This time, the reporting verb is syntactically superordinate to the reported speech, which is a complement of the reporting verb ("said"). However, this complement - "You're absolutely right" - is not a subordinate clause. What is embedded happens to have the form of a clause, but it involves the embedding of a text, not a clause as such. | |
| Mar 9 at 14:26 | comment | added | John Bollinger | These sentences exhibit subject / object inversion. The "said" example is equivalent to "Jake said, 'You're absolutely right'." I hope you agree, @BillJ, that in that variation, Jake is the subject, said is the verb, and the sentence You're absolutely right is the direct object of "said". In that case, "said" is used transitively. Inverting subject and object does not change the analysis. | |
| Mar 9 at 14:13 | comment | added | John Bollinger | Well, @BillJ, the OED seems to disagree with you, at least with regard to say / said. | |
| Mar 9 at 8:32 | comment | added | BillJ | -1 I disagree. "Agree" is not transitive here. In the example 'You're absolutely right,' said Jake, the sequence "said Jake" has the form of a parenthetical (a type of supplement). The subject of the whole sentence is "you", and the verb phrase "are absolutely right" is the predicate. This then, as I said, has "said Jake" tagged on the end as a parenthetical. Note that in the parenthetical "said Jake" there is postposing of the subject "Jake". | |
| Mar 8 at 18:52 | history | answered | John Bollinger | CC BY-SA 4.0 |