The Distinction of Transitive vs Intensive into the Actantial Structures of Monosemantic Verbs

Abstract

The article deals with the difficulty of delimiting the distinction between transitive vs.intransitive meaning in monosemantic verbs. This is because, as a rule, in a monosemanticverb, the mention tr./intr. it is put in front of the definition of its unique meaning, whichincludes two syntagmatic structures (the transitive and the intransitive) as in the case ofthe verb “to fall asleep”. However, two meanings must be delimited, because this verbbelongs to two semantic classes: class of the verbs of becoming, with the intransitivemeaning “Ionel falls asleep” and the class of the action verbs, with the transitive meaning“The mother puts Ionel to sleep”. The decisive argument would be that the choice betweena transitive and an intransitive syntagmatic model is made on the basis of the phenomenonof the actantial derivation of the verb. In this case, it is necessary to detail the syntagmaticpattern, so that the verb has two meanings, one intransitive and one transitive.