自～／他～ペア：逆の形 -- Transitive/Intransitive pairs: opposite forms


I've noticed (through much frustration) that many 自～／他～ pairs have "opposite"
forms; particularly with the ~u and ~eru types. For example, 焼く・焼ける are
opposite from 開く・開ける.

> 焼く （他） － パン **を** 焼く ("Bake bread")  
>  焼ける （自）－ パン **が** ちょうどよく焼けた ("The bread was baked just right")
>
> 開く （自） － ドア **が** ひとりでに開いた！怖いでしょう！ ("The door opened by itself! Isn't that
> creepy?")  
>  開ける （他）－ 彼女のためにドア **を** 開けてあげる ("I open doors for my girlfriend")

Is there any logical reason that some pairs like these have "opposite"
forms??? Or is it just to piss off the people trying to learn them??




<http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/ti_list.html> Has a good list of them, in
case you wanted to see them at a glance.

Nothing I could find gave a good reason for it. Probably the language just
evolved organically, as they tend to do.

Of course, linguists will try to explain anything, so I'm not surprised that
Japanese paper is so hard to digest.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it and just learn the words in context.

