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While reading naruto's answer to [Difference in sentences (と and
に）](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/62688/difference-in-
sentences-%E3%81%A8-and-%E3%81%AB), I realized that although キス is an
intransitive verb in Japanese, the English _kiss_ is almost always used as a
transitive verb. Some other examples of this are アクセス and リベンジ. My question is
thus is there a reason why primarily transitive English words when converted
to Japanese could become primarily intransitive words?

My expectation is that primarily transitive English words like _to google_ or
_to master_ to become primarily transitive Japanese words and primarily
intransitive English words like _jump_ to become primarily intransitive
Japanese, which is true for at least those three cases. Is the way words like
キス became incorporated into Japanese different from words like マスター?
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2018-11-07T17:56:13.737
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question
loanwords transitivity
Transitive English words becoming intransitive 外来語
There should be exceptions, but I suppose this is largely based on the
transitivity of the original Japanese verb before it was replaced by the
loanword.

  * (～に)キスする = (～に)口づけする
  * (～に)アクセスする = (～に)進入する/接続する
  * (～に)リベンジする = (～に)復讐する
  * (～に)コンサルトする = (～に)相談する
  * (～に)タッチする = (～に)触れる

When the original Japanese verb is transitive, the loanword version is also
transitive.

  * (～を)スタートする = (～を)開始する
  * (～を)テストする = (～を)試験する

Occasionally, an English intransitive verb can be borrowed as a transitive
suru-verb:

  * (～を)リタイヤする = (～を)退職する = to retire _from_ ～

Many loaned suru-verbs are not even based on English verbs, so it's not
surprising if transitivity is ignored :)

  * (～を)マイナスする = (～を)減算する
  * (～を)リストラする = (～を)解雇する
  * (～を)オンエアする = (～を)放送する
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answer
In linguistics, transitivity is a complex thing. In fact, it's not as simple
as "transitive" vs "intransitive". Apparently, there's a scale, and English is
overall higher on it than Japanese.

This means that the brackets of "transitivity" are placed a bit differently in
Japanese and in fact contain fewer verbs than in English. Something that may
be considered an "object" of a transitive action in English is more likely to
fall into the "necessary extended argument" (recipient/beneficiary/theme) of
an intransitive verb in Japanese. Especially if the typical "object" of that
verb is a person that has agency independent of our own, or if we are not
directly affecting that thing with the action in question.

I think the general rule of thumb is this:

**Is the action being done directly ON the object (を) or TO the object (に)?
Does the subject/agent have power over the object? Does the state of the
object change?**

_(Movement verbs in Japanese are weird in this context, I'd love to see
someone's thoughts on that)_

Thus in Japanese, we are doing an act of revenge "to someone" and not "on
someone", a person being kissed is not a direct object (ideally we don't force
him/her) but a recipient, and when we're accessing something, we're not
changing it.

I think that's also why in Japanese "like" is intransitive ("something is
liked", we're not affecting it in any way by liking it), "to understand" is
intransitive (because we're not affecting the area that is being understood,
and understanding is a state that we reach with little agency over the
process) and "to know" is transitive (and refers in fact to that moment in
which we "got to know" the information, thus we have some agency over that
information, it's more direct).

* * *

_(You may want to stop reading now, because it's about to get a bit more
technical and skim the edges of rambling...)_

As I understand it, there are two types of transitivity: **semantic** (what
something means) and **syntactic** (how it's coded by the language). These
aren't always the same thing.

Semantically, there are four (and not two) types of verbs (examples are from
English):

  * strictly intransitive, e.g. arrive, chat
  * strictly transitive, e.g. recognize, like
  * ambitransitive verbs, where Subject=Agent, verbs allowing "indefinite object deletion", e.g. follow, win, eat, read (there's an object, we just don't say it explicitly: when we say "I read" there's a book or newspaper in there somewhere, we just don't mention it)
  * ambitransitive verbs, where Subject=Object, called also " _inchoative-causative_ "* verb pairs, e.g. melt, trip (one may argue that those are just two different verbs in a pair, which in some languages just "look the same", so in English "to break something" semantically doesn't equal "to break on its own" - in this light the existence of transitive/intransitive verb pairs in Japanese is a natural thing, and English is the weird one)

Depending on the language, the verb can fall into different categories.

_inchoative_ = denoting an aspect of a verb expressing the beginning of an
action, typically one occurring of its own accord.

[[source]](http://www.grammaticalfeatures.net/features/transitivity.html)
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answer