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In English, there are many verbs that can behave both transitively and
intransitively without appreciably changing the meaning of the verb. Just off
the top of my head

> I ate a sandwich. (vt) -- I ate at noon. (vi)
>
> I'll write a book (vt) -- I'll write in a book. (vi)

There are also verbs that can only behave transitively (requiring a direct
object to make sense) or intransitively (do not make sense _with_ a direct
object):

> I am sitting. (vi only)
>
> I opened the door. (vt only)

My questions are:

  1. Is it possible for a single verb in Japanese to have both transitive and intransitive uses?

  2. If a verb is marked transitive in a dictionary, is that a guarantee that the verb has a specific object (that would be marked with を, か, or と) somewhere within the context of the conversation (it may be unstated).

This question was brought on by an answer I received to [Transitive verbs
where the direct object is a
clause](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/42331/transitive-verbs-
where-the-direct-object-is-a-clause). In the answer, it was implied that my
sentence fragment 本に書いた was unnatural (or not grammatical) and suggested that
I used 本に落書きした instead. It occurred to me that this might be due to 書く a
transitive verb, being used without a clear direct object.
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grammar transitivity
Can verbs be both transitive and intransitive?
In Japanese verbs are usually not ambitransitive. There are uses where the
direct object is omitted leading to a construct where a transitive verb
appears as intransitive.

An example is:

> 今夜飲みに行きます。  
>  Tonight I'm going out drinking

Where the part お酒を is implied, such that the verb "drink" is can only refer to
the act of consuming alcohol unless otherwise stated. Instead many verbs have
transitive/intransitive pairs, where the ending is changed to reflect the
different usage, such as:

開く 開ける  
乗る 乗せる  
決まる 決める  
... etc

There are some pure ambitransitive verbs though as pointed out below, even
though they are less common, such as 回る、吹く、持つ...

See （５）自他同形の動詞について in this link:
<http://w01.i-next.ne.jp/~g140179870/jita.html>
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answer
The question of transitivity can get tricky, especially when discussing and
using languages as different as English and Japanese.

First, some background.

## Kinds of transitivity

### Syntactic

Most English grammars appear to discuss "transitivity" in terms of the
**syntax** or wording of a sentence. A verb is deemed to be "transitive" if it
is followed by a direct object.

  * _I eat an apple._ → Transitive, as the verb "eat" is followed by the direct object "an apple".
  * _I eat._ → Intransitive, as there is no direct object explicitly included in this sentence.

### Semantic

Most Japanese grammars appear to discuss this concept differently, where the
transitivity of a verb is considered in terms of the **semantics** or meaning
of the word. The Japanese terms for the verb types are 他動詞 (literally "other-
moving / other-acting word") and 自動詞 (literally "self-moving / self-acting
word"). A verb is deemed to be a 他動詞 if the action of the verb involves the
actor (the "subject" of the verb, in English grammar terms) performing some
action that affects another noun (the "object" of the verb). Importantly, this
applies _regardless of whether that object is explicitly included in the
sentence_.

  * 私はリンゴを食べる。 → Transitive in **syntactic** terms, as the verb is preceded by the direct object リンゴを. Also transitive in **semantic** terms, as the semantics (meaning) of the verb 食べる requires the existence of an object: one cannot "eat" without eating _something_.
  * 私は食べる。 → Intransitive in **syntactic** terms, as there is no direct object explicitly included in this sentence. However, this is still transitive in **semantic** terms: the verb 食べる is a 他動詞, even when the object is left unstated.

## Your questions

Now that we've established a framework for discussion, let's look again at
your questions.

  1. _Is it possible for a single verb in Japanese to have both transitive and intransitive uses?_

In terms of syntax, Japanese is famous for the degree to which various
portions of a sentence can be omitted. As such, pretty much **any** 他動詞 verb
in Japanese can be used syntactically transitively and syntactically
intransitively. Some 自動詞 verbs in Japanese can also be used both syntactically
transitively and syntactically intransitively (more on that below).

In terms of semantics, single verbs that have both transitive and intransitive
senses were much more common in Old Japanese; over time, different conjugated
forms became more widespread to express one or the other. Take 付く, for
instance. This was both a 自動詞 and a 他動詞 in older Japanese, but now, the root
form 付く is 自動詞. The 他動詞 senses historically used the 下二段活用 (lower bigrade
conjugation) pattern that became the _-eru_ ending in 付ける. Another example is
広ぐ. The root form is no longer used, while the 自動詞 senses are expressed by
広がる, and the 他動詞 senses by 広げる.

There are still a few verbs in modern Japanese that can be used as either 自動詞
or 他動詞. Most of the ones I'm aware of are Sino-Japanese (kanji terms read with
_on'yomi_ and followed by する), such as 完成する.

  2. _If a verb is marked transitive in a dictionary, is that a guarantee that the verb has a specific object (that would be marked with を, か, or と) somewhere within the context of the conversation (it may be unstated)?_

I assume that you're describing Japanese-to-English dictionaries. I believe
these all base their "intransitive / transitive" descriptions on the 自動詞・他動詞
distinctions in Japanese. If my understanding is correct, then yes, a
"transitive verb" in this case would have an object, either explicitly
included in the sentence or left unstated and implied (as in the "eat / 食べる"
example above).

### "Direct objects" in Japanese

Note that the presence of a direct object in Japanese (a noun marked with を)
does _not_ necessarily indicate that the verb is a 他動詞. Consider the sentence,
私は道を歩く。 This is literally _"I walk the road."_ Syntactically, this could be
considered a transitive use of the verb 歩く _"walk"_. However, semantically,
the action of 歩く-ing does not affect the road in any way -- it affects the
actor, 私, instead: so 歩く is still a 自動詞, even though this sentence includes a
direct object.

This is similar to how 向く works, as described [in snailplane's answer to your
other question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/24090/is-the-
verb-%E5%90%91%E3%81%8F-transitive-or-intransitive#answer-24091).
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answer