Transitive or Intransitive verb

[Elitez]

Is saved an intransitive or transitive verb in this sentence?

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

 

[MikeNewYork]

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

 

[Elitez]

"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]

"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]

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

 

[Tdol]

What did the discovery save?
It saved a life

It's a direct object.

 

[TheParser]

"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.