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Question

In the sentence  "Josh flew to Ireland last year." - is " to Ireland"  a direct object and is "flew" a transitive verb?

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

No. 'Flew' is intransitive in your sentence. In 'Jim flew his plane to Ireland', 'flew' is transitive. 'To Ireland' is a prepositiional phrase functioning as an adverb, like 'last year'.

Zinger13 · Answer

No, in this particular sentence "flew" isn't transitive. Remember that in order for a verb to be transitive, it must also have an object. That actually brings me to your next question. In this sentence, "to Ireland" is actually a prepositional phrase. It might help to leave out the prepositional phrases at first man because something in a prepositional phrase can never be an object of the verb. So if you do that, you'd be left with "Josh flew last year". Phrases like that are just extra--you can take them out and the sentence will still be grammatically correct. In looking for a direct object, you'd say, "Josh flew what?" If you could answer that question, the thing he flew is the direct object but you can't there is none. In this case, there's no direct object so the verb is intransitive.

If you were to say something like "Josh flew a plane to Ireland last year", then 'plane' would be the direct object, making the verb transitive.

Didn't mean to give you a long grammar lesson man but I hope that helps!

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