Exercise 5.5

A. Here are some candidate adjectives from Laurel MacKenzie that seem to be obligatorily transitive:

• reliant - She was reliant *(on her friends).
• replete/rife - The paper was replete/rife *(with errors).
• en- adjectives [enamoured, encapsulated, encased] - The manuscripts were encased *(in glass).

bent, in the intentional meaning, as in "They were bent on conquest."

B. At, despite, and during are obligatorily transitive prepositions, whereas along, besides, between, by, and under are optionally transitive. Here are some intransitive examples with these latter prepositions:

1. She came along when we went to the movies.
2. The movie looks boring. Besides, I don't have the time to go.
3. He is either cheerful or miserably, never anything in between.
4. Come by, if you have a chance.
5. John is six feet under and has been for a while.

B. In the standard language, with is obligatorily transitive. However, there are dialects in which with can occur intransitively, as in:

They asked me to come with?