If marking by を is not enough, do you know what criteria use the 広辞苑 (or other japanese grammars) to decide beetwen 自 or 他 ?
The use of を @Leebo is refering to is very specific. It marks an area across which movement takes place. So it is only used with movement verbs. It is easy not to confuse it with transitive verb constructions. (as a side note, other languages like german also mark this type of movement with the accusative case)
transitivity is a semantic concept as well as a syntactic one. In japanese grammars, the “test” for transitivity is a semantic one: Does it make sense to ask the question “何を?”. If this question makes sense (whether the accusative phrase is omitted or not) the verb construction is transitive. This is very similar to how an english speaker is taught to identify transitive verbs. The problem of course is that you already have to know how to speak the language to be able to answer that question.
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Could you provide an example to illustrate? I’m thinking of 道を歩いた but I’m not sure if that’s what’s being referred to here and if that passes or fails your transitivity test. I mean, Merriam-Webster defines the use of to walk in “I walked the streets of London” as transitive. But I don’t know if Japanese grammarians feel the same way about 歩く.
That’s the one I was referring to.
を歩く
を行く
を渡る
That usage of を is not considered to be marking a direct object (according to that Stack Exchange question that I’ll try to find again)
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Do you think you can explain better mr. big guy? At least I’m trying to help people answer their questions. jeez!
But you are “helping” by stating incorrect information as if it were fact. Please read this article to learn how it works.
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burn all the verbs and we shall find peace
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We won’t find anything without verbs. 
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Im sorry I should’ve explained further. The verbs you noted are verbs of location, go, walk, cross, etc,. and take a different particle called に “ni”. sorry about that
The ones I just mentioned there can all take に or を (well, 歩く needs a helping verb to take に, but we don’t need to get too in the weeds). But when they take を they are not considered transitive.
I didn’t know that. That’s very interesting about them not being considered transitive. I never thought about them in that usage. Thanks
Without getting too far into the weeds, what do you mean? I would have thought it was fine to say 学校に歩く for example.
It would need to be 学校に歩いて行く
歩く by itself is just the action of moving your legs and does not contain the “point A to point B” meaning necessary to get you to a destination.
走る and other “action” verbs are the same. You need a “coming / going” verb (not sure what the proper name would be) to help out.
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Thanks! That isn’t something I was aware of. I’m still trying to get the hang of Japanese helper verbs which are extremely common and important, but not generally taught at the beginner level.
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This is not the first time I’ve seen the Japanese words, but it’s the first time I’ve seen them since I’ve gotten incredibly comfortable with kanji. Definitely agree with what you’re saying, 他動詞 and 自動詞 make worlds of sense.
And just as a side-note for anyone else interested, after consulting with a native speaker, I learned that, while it’s wrong to say 学校に歩く, it’s okay to say 学校まで歩く, and keeping in mind what Leebo said about 歩く being more or less moving your legs this makes sense to me. Something like (way too literally of course) I’ll move my legs until I get to school.
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Do you think you can explain better mr. big guy?
I can give it a shot.
Intransitive verbs are verbs that represent an action or a state that is related only to the subject of the sentence. In other words, they only require a subject (stated or implied) to form a complete thought. Common examples are movement, spontaneous change, or feeling emotions.
Transitive verbs require not just a subject, but also a direct object to make sense, either stated or implied. Transitive verbs represent actions that act upon or induce some change in someone or something else. Common examples are creation, destruction, transportation, and communication.
There are verbs that can act as either like 待つ. Verbs can also move between the categories depending on their conjugation, e.g. intransitive verbs in their causative form can become transitive.
That’s pretty much it. It’s just about needing a direct object to make sense. It has nothing to do with passivity or action or being stagnant or whatever.
Transitive verbs refer to action, while intransitive refers to stagnant or verbs that are passive or motionless to the speaker. However, they are not action verbs.
This reasoning quickly falls apart when you examine actual verbs. Most movement verbs are actually intransitive, both ones representing movement through space like 行く and 来る and movement-related actions like 歩く or 泳ぐ. I’m not sure how you can say those aren’t actions.
Intransitive verbs usually take the particle が and transitive verbs (action verbs) usally take を。が means someone or something is doing some action,while, を connects a transitive verb to a direct object.
Both transitive and intransitive verbs use が to indicate the subject.
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Actually, you are wrong. は marks the subject, が is used when the subject is already known big guy.
Ooookay. Let’s lay off on the “big guy” stuff, especially considering he’s doing his best to help you.
は marks the topic. が marks the subject. Sometimes the topic is the subject, in which case the は supplants the が, but there’s still an important distinction between them. (For example, the topic could also be the direct object, say in the sentence ビールは飲みます = “I’ll have the beer” - the subject here is an omitted 私.)
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