Verbs that express actions or events that cannot have any particular target usually do not take a grammatical object at all, i.e. they are intransitive. Examples: kuolla (to die), pudota (to fall), herätä (to wake up).
Verbs like elää (to live) can be classified into this category. Even though they may be accompanied by an object-like specifier, e.g. Hän eli pitkän elämän (He/she lived a long life), such situations might be better analyzed as containing an object-like quantifier rather than an object. This was described in the preceding section.
The verb “to fight” clearly expresses an action with a target, an adversary. The target can be expressed with an object, e.g. “we fought them”, but also with a preposition clause, e.g. “we fought against them”. In Finnish, the corresponding verb taistella cannot have a grammatical object; instead, the adversary is expressed using the preposition vastaan, with the partitive: taistelimme heitä vastaan.
Similarly, the verb hyökätä (to attack) does not take an object. Instead, the postposition kimppuun is used, with the genitive: hyökkäsimme vastustajan kimppuun (we attacked the enemy). This suggests an attack over an adversary; in more figurative contexts, the postposition vastaan is normally used: he hyökkäsivät ehdotusta vastaan (they attacked the proposal).
The verb liittyä (to join, to get connected) does not take an object. Instead, the postposition seuraan, with the genitive, is used when the target is a person: Liityin hänen seuraansa (I joined him/her; literally: I joined into his/her company). When joining a society, the illative is used: Liityin yhdistykseen (I joined the association).