Miyano-sama / Japanese Language /Transitive and Intransitive verbs in Japanese LanguageI have explained in a previous article
http://www.geocities.com/miyanosama/Japanese/Giving_and_receiving.htm
about how can “Giving and Receiving verbs” help you understand the
missing pronouns. This article will also deal with another subject in
Japanese grammar that deals with missing pronouns.
What are Transitive and Intransitive verbs?Transitive verbs (他動詞)
are the verbs which requires objects, and Intransitive verbs (自動詞)
are the ones which do not. Notice that Japanese grammar books call them
ta-doushi and ji-doushi. The “ta” in “ta-doushi” means “other”, while
“ji” in “ji-dous hi” means “by oneself”. You may understand that
transitive verb needs other words to work, while the intransitive
verb can work by itself.
The verb in the first example is “eats”. The object of that verb is “unaju”. The verb in the second sentence is “bloom”, and it requires no object. There might be times when a transitive verb seems to take no object like when saying “I eat when I get hungry”, but you should not get confused from that. So what is the story with Transitive and Intransitive verbs in Japanese?In Japanese Language there are many pairs of similar verbs that are transitive and intransitive. Consider the following table:
The above table contains the following pairs of verbs
The first column contains examples about transitive verbs. You can see how is that they require a subject and an object. The second column contains examples about intransitive verbs. Again I guess it is clear how they require only a subject. Notice that one may understand that the verbs in the second column are nothing but “passive” form of the verb. This understanding is not bad actually since in many cases we will find ourselves translating them into passive. However, there are times when you will find it rather strange to translate them into passives. For instance, in example 2, I simply ignored the verb in my translation, and in example 3 I translated it into an active (not passive) transitive form. To be more specific, most of the time, the intransitive verbs in Japanese describe a state resulting from certain action. “The door is open” in Japanese thinking is the state that result because of that “Somebody has opened the door”. Because of that they say「ドアが開いている」(doa ga aite iru). Here, it is not necessary to use “passive” to translate this particular example. In addition, some intransitive verbs require an indirect object to give information about the target or destination of the verb. One example of is the verb 入る (to enter). 泥棒は窓から部屋に入った。 Dorobou wa mado kara heya ni haitta. The thief entered the room through the window. Notice that in English “the room” acts as an object, where this is not the case in Japanese. ExceptionYou might come across pairs of verbs that seem to be pair of
transitive and intransitive verbs, but in fact they are not. One example
is 預かる and 預ける. Both of
them are transitive but each has different meaning. I will explain the
meaning of them at the end of this article. How can make Transitive into Intransitive?Sorry, there’s no rule for this. So you just have to memorize them. How does understanding this topic in dealing with missing pronouns?The basic sentence pattern for transitive verb is like this:
Moreover, the sentence pattern for intransitive verbs is like this:
Whenever something is missing, you should be able judge by the meaning and type of the verb what is the missing. Let’s consider this short example from Recent Detective Conan Manga. 
[Vermouth] すごい… 抜きまくってる あの調子だと１分足らずで２台目に届くわよ！ The verb ending 「まくる」is just a verb suffix to indicate reckless abandon to the activity. The verb 抜く is a transitive verb that mean to “surpass”. Both of the subject and object are missing, but from the picture we know that Vermouth is talking about Akai’s car. So the missing subject is “Akai’s car”, and the missing object is “The other cars”. The verb 届くis an intransitive verb meaning “To reach”. This verb is similar to the verb 入る in that it requires a destination object sometimes. Fortunately the destination object is mentioned, and it is ２台目 (the second car). From the context, we can understand that the subject of 届くis the same as that of the verb 抜く. Knowing all that we can translate the above two lines as follows: Amazing! (Akai’s car) is surpassing (the other cars) recklessly… At this rate (it) will reach the second car in less than 1 minute! Words between parentheses are not in the original Japanese text. It’s worth to mention that the pair 届ける、届くare commonly used to describe the arrival of any kind of deliveries. 
In the above Panel, Satan-san says 「ちわ― 悪魔屋です！不幸をお届けに参りました―」which translates to “Chiwaa… I’m the evil man! I came to deliver unhappiness!” One more exampleconsider the following panels taken from colored manga of Detective Conan.
[Mai]
[Megure]
[Mitani] On the first panel, Mai uses the verb 預ける which means “to leave something in the custody of someone”. There is the same verb which I mentioned about in the exception section. What is exceptional about the pair 預かる and 預ける is that the both of them are transitive. The meaning of the verb 預かる means “to take care of something or somebody”. This verb describes the relationship between Kogoro and Conan. 小五郎はコナンを預かる On the second Panel, Megure used two verbs, one of them is intransitive, and the other is transitive. The intransitive verb is 亡くなる (to die), and the intransitive verb is 渡す (to hand). The word 飲み物 (drinks) is an object because it is marked with the particle を. Since we know that 亡くなる is intransitive, it cannot be its verb even though it comes right after it. The verb of the object 飲み物 is 渡す which comes later in the sentence. The subject of the verb 渡す is あなた which were marked by the particle が. In the basic sentence pattern of transitive verbs, the particle は (wa) was the one used with the subject. However, Megure used the particle が for emphasis. Finally, on the last Panel, Mitani used the passive form of the 渡す to show annoyance. |
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© Gosho Aoyama / Shogakukan / TOHO / Yomiuri TV / TMS 1996 / Shonen Sunday |
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