Valence

A transitive verb is a verb that is followed by a direct object. Similarly, an intransitive verb is a verb that is not followed by a direct object.

Often, a verb can be either transitive OR intransitive. In other words, the speaker can choose whether to have a direct object after the verb, or not. (Look at the table below, where the direct object is written in Italics.)

Is it Natural English?
These intransitive sentences feel uncomfortably short for some English speakers, so you will often see them used with adverbs to make the sentence feel more natural.
 * 1) He just arrived.
 * 2) He went quickly.
 * 3) He temporarilly forgot.
 * 4) He suddenly remembered.

Adding More Information
You can always add more information to a sentence using prepositional phrases.
 * He slept
 * for two hours
 * on the floor.
 * He sneezed
 * onto his wife.
 * He sat
 * on the floor
 * with his legs crossed
 * in the lounge
 * until his legs fell asleep.

Strictly Intransitive Verbs
Some verbs can only be intransitive. If the speaker wants to add more information, they need to add the information as prepositional phrases.

Here are some examples.
 * The wind blows (from the North).
 * He died (in his sleep).
 * He fell (from the second story).
 * It rained (throughout the night).
 * The dog ran (into his kennel).
 * He sat (on a porcupine).
 * He slept (until morning).
 * He slipped (on the spilt milk).
 * He sneezed (on his best friend).
 * He stopped (in his tracks).
 * The sun shines (on the righteous).
 * The fish swam (around the divers).
 * He tripped (over his tongue).
 * It happened (to them).
 * Please participate.

Polytransitive Verbs
Some verbs need more information than a direct object to make sense. For example, to use the verb 'put' correctly, we two pieces of information. We need a direct object and we need to know where the thing is put? This last piece of information is given by a prepositional phrase.

(In English, it is not correct to say, "I put the cheese"; but in Japanese it is ok to say "チーズを入れた".)

Verbs that use one object are called monotransitive verbs. Verbs that use two objects are called ditransitive, and verbs that use three objects are called tritransitive verbs.

Adjectives and Verbs as Parameters
Often, parameters are nouns. Look at this example: "The boy traded the girl a sandwich for a kiss ."

Here, the parameters (underlined words) are nouns. But some verbs have non-noun parameters too. Here are a few examples:
 * 1) My mother made me [noun]  apologise [verb].
 * 2) Your family looks happy [adjective].