About these statements, let us start our discussion by analyzing them:
The student stood out among the others.
Fight the dengue mosquito, otherwise it can proliferate.
In both we found the verbs stand out and proliferate accompanied by the pronoun if, a fact that leads us to the notion that they, according to grammatical postulates, present themselves as pronominals, that is, those verbs that require the use of such a pronoun with them. However, it is up to us, language users, to verify, to certify if this linguistic occurrence really takes place or not.
Well, in response to this question raised, it is worth stating that in the case of predication, both the verb to excel and the verb to proliferate are conceived as intransitives, thus dispensing with the use of the oblique pronoun (if). In this sense, returning to the first notion - demarcated by the fact that they, supposedly, are conceived as pronominals, it is noteworthy that they are not. Therefore, let's rectify the linguistic utterances that served as an example:
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
The student stood out among the others.
Fight the dengue mosquito, otherwise it can proliferate.
By Vânia Duarte
Graduated in Letters
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
DUARTE, Vânia Maria do Nascimento. "Proliferate and Excel: two non-pronominal verbs"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/gramatica/proliferar-sobressair-dois-verbos-nao-pronominais.htm. Accessed on June 28, 2021.
