A recursive resolver does not need to forward queries. ;-)
Conceptually, it starts with the root nameservers and works its way up - dot by dot, recursively, hence the name - until it finds the domain the host in question in it, then asks the nameservers for that zone and caches the result.
It is possible - with BIND9 at least, but I guess other DNS servers offer similar capabilities - to use forward servers for convenience/caching or to redirect queries to specific servers depending on the name in the query. But it is not mandatory.
