15. Transitive & intransitive verbs

Index

• Move-words in Japanese are verbs.
• Verbs are words that denote an action or movement.
• Self-move verbs are verbs that denote self-movement.
• Other-move verbs are verbs that denote movement of something external.
• Many verbs have a self-move and other-move variant.
• 出る (でる) = to come out (self-move)
• 出す (だす) = to bring out (other-move).
• 負ける (まける) = to lose (self).
• 負かす (まかす) = to defeat (other).

ある ＆ する

• Self-move verbs are based around ある (to be).
• Other-move verbs are based around する　(to do).

する Family Rule

• Three laws of move-word pairs.
• Law 1: One of a pair ends in -す, this one is related to する.
• 出る & 出す is a pair, 出す is the one ending with -す that is related to する.
• Can also end in -せる.
• This verb is the other-move verb that requires a grammatical object. It means to take something out as opposed to going out yourself.

ある Family Rule

• Law 2 (ある family law): Where one of a pair ends in the あ-stem + る (ある), it is the self-move partner within the pair.
• ある is the mother of all self-move verbs.

Switch Rule

• For a regular verb ending in う, if it is changed to the え-stem and る　is appended, it switched to the opposite move-type from which it currently is (self-move verb would flip to other-move, other-move to self-move).

Honorary Rules

• When a む ending verb is flipped to める, the む is the self-move partner in the pair, and める is the other-move.
• When a ぶ ending verb is flipped to べる, ぶ is self-move and べる is other-move.
• -く → -ける & -ぐ　→ -げる & -う → -える & -る verbs that do not fit the first two laws are verbs in which you cannot truly know which way in which they will flip with regards to the switch rule.
• Normally you can tell semantically that a verb has been flipped.
• Infer from what the word refers to normally to determine what it is flipped to (e.g 売る = sell (involves external object, must be other-move. I sell something.) → 売れる = sell (Flipped, must be self-move. I sell like hot-cakes.))