kraftiekortie wrote:
I guess "flew" in this sentence could be described as being an "intransitive that looks like a transitive."
Which means I'll have to concede
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Yes.
In the sentence "Lindberg flew the Spirit of St. Louis to Paris". "Flew" is different from the flew in "the bird flew".
It would still be different even if it were "The bird flew to Paris".
In the sentence "the bird flew". The bird is in the act flying. Nothing is on the receiving end of the action. Even if you tacked on "to Paris" at the end there would still be no object of the sentence. The word "flew" would still be "intransitive".
In the Lindberg sentence the word "flew" is used to mean "to operate and or pilot a flying machine". So "the Spirit of St. Louis" would be the object of the transitive verb "fly".
In the Lindberg sentence the subject (lindberg) is operating/piloting a flying a machine. So the object is the flying machine (The Spirit of St. Lo). If either Lindberg, or a bird, "Flew across the Atlantic". Then flew become intransitive, and has no object.