Transitivity

From Suzanne Fleischman's Tense and Narrativity, p. 390, note 139. She summarizes Hopper and Thompson's "Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse" (Language 56.2, 1980: 251-99):


"Hopper and Thompson (1980) define transitivity as a cluster concept involving ten oppositional variables. These are listed below in SMALL CAPS, with the opposing values (or for scalar values the end values of the continuum) given in parentheses. The boldfaced feature correlates with high transitivity, the nonboldfaced with low transitivity. The variables include: (1) PARTICIPANTS (2 or more participants—A[gent] and O[bject] / single participant, (2) KINESIS (action / nonaction), (3) ASPECT (telic / atelic), (4) PUNCTUALITY (punctual / non-punctual), (5) VOLITIONALITY (volitional / nonvolitional), (6) AFFIRMATION (affirmative / negative), (7) MODE (realis / irrealis), (8) AGENCY (A[gent] high in potency /A[gent] low in potency), (9) AFFECTEDNESS OF OBJECT (O[bject] totally affected / O[bject] not affected), and (10) INDIVIDUATION OF OBJECT (O highly individuated / O nonindividuated). Every clause in a text is assigned an overall transitivity rating based on its combined scores for the above variables, each of which represents a different facet of 'the effectiveness or intensity with which the action is transferred from one participant to another' (Hopper and Thompson 1980: 252).

Items and Generalizations at Work

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