Transitive or Intransitive verb

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Elitez

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Is saved an intransitive or transitive verb in this sentence?

The discovery the scientific team made in December saved a life in March.
 

MikeNewYork

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What do you think? Is there a direct object or not?
 

Elitez

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"life" is not an object so "save" should be a intransitive verb. But the book which I am going through is given as transitive verb. So I thought of confirming if my understanding was correct.
 

MikeNewYork

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"life" is not an object so "save" should be a intransitive verb. But the book which I am going through is given as transitive verb. So I thought of confirming if my understanding was correct.

In "saved a life", "saved" is a transitive verb and "a life" is the direct object. There is no other way to look at it.
 

emsr2d2

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Why did you think "a life" wasn't the object in that sentence?
 

Tdol

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What did the discovery save?
It saved a life

It's a direct object.
 

TheParser

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"Life" is not an object so ...

***** NOT A TEACHER ****


Hello, Elitez:

I was just wondering whether this might be the problem.

Maybe you think that the word "object" refers to a concrete thing that you can touch, such as "dog," "baseball," "pencil," etc.

And, of course, we cannot touch "life."

But in grammar, the word "object" just refers to a noun or noun-like word.


There are concrete nouns. There are abstract nouns that you cannot touch. For example:

They want democracy.
She learned humility.
He lacked kindness.
The invention saves time.
 
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