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On jisho.org, 向ける is described as a transitive verb. Logically, 向く would be
intransitive, but the entry just says:

> Godan verb with ku ending

Wiktionary is exactly the same, listing 向ける as intransitive and nothing for
向く. But what really gets me is that jisho.org lists sentences using 向く that
look both transitive and intransitive. E.g.

> 上を向きなさい。 "Look up"
>
> この仕事は彼に向いている。 "He is well suited for this job"

In the first one, there is an object marker, and the second one, there isn't.
I thought that transitive verbs always used the object marker を, the second
sentence looks like an intransitive verb.

Could someone help me clear up this confusion?
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2015-05-02T16:50:50.700
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question
verbs transitivity
Is the verb 向く transitive or intransitive?
From Samuel Martin's _Reference Grammar of Japanese_ (1975), p.191:

> The intransitive verb 向く【むく】 means 'faces, fronts on' or 'is suitable for,
> suits' with N に; but with N を it is a quasi-intransitive verb of motion
> meaning 'turn (one's face) toward)' [...]

He gives these examples:

> 横【よこ】を向いて【むいて】 turn to the side
>
> 前【まえ】を向いて【むいて】 turn to the front

This verb belongs to a class of verbs of motion which take を-arguments, which
we nonetheless might want to consider intransitive. Martin uses the term
"quasi-intransitive" to describe this sort of verb. You're probably familiar
with examples like:

> 公園【こうえん】を散歩【さんぽ】する take a walk in a park
>
> 橋【はし】を渡る【わたる】 cross a bridge
>
> 家【いえ】を出る【でる】 leave home

All of these are subtly different, and none is exactly like 向く, but I think
that we can treat all four as examples of Martin's "quasi-intransitive verbs
of motion".

If you consult monolingual dictionaries, you'll find that they disagree with
one another on how to classify this use. For example, 明鏡国語辞典 calls 向く a
transitive verb and treats the directional object as though it's a normal
object. But other dictionaries like 広辞苑 call the verb intransitive.

You can find some previous answers discussing this use of を and the question
of whether these verbs should be considered transitive if you search
Japanese.SE. You can also find a description of some of these uses of を in _A
Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar_ by Makino and Tsutsui starting on page
349, though it doesn't cover 向く specifically.

I'm afraid this is one of the sticky points of Japanese grammar where
descriptions differ, but hopefully you can look at how the verb is used and
make sense of it one way or another :-)
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2015-05-02T17:39:03.637
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answer