Meaning of を in 博士たちは水際を歩いた。


By now, I know that motion verbs (行く, 来る, 歩く, 走る, etc...) can take the
particle を to indicate something being traversed (going "through" something).
There are already plenty of answers regarding this topic
([this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3243/making-sense-of-
transitive-usage-
of-%E8%A1%8C%E3%81%8F-and-%E6%9D%A5%E3%82%8B-%E3%82%92%E8%A1%8C%E3%81%8F-and-%E3%82%92%E6%9D%A5%E3%82%8B)
was the best I found so far).

With this in consideration, I translated

> 博士たちは水際を歩いた。

as

> The group walked through the water's edge.

However, I've seen other people translating it as

> The group walked by the water.

which actually sounds more accurate.

Is this correct? If so, how does this meaning of を relates with the idea of
traversing something (like the examples provided in linked post)?




水際 vaguely refers to the area near the coast, the area that contains both A
and B.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/c3lBhm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/c3lBhm.jpg)

People usually don't want to get wet, so your sentence usually means they
walked through the B area, and the use of **を** is perfectly natural. If the
sentence were something like 博士達の船は水際で魚を捕っていた, then it would refer to the A
area.




水際 vaguely refers to the area near the coast, the area that contains both A
and B.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/c3lBhm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/c3lBhm.jpg)

People usually don't want to get wet, so your sentence usually means they
walked through the B area, and the use of **を** is perfectly natural. If the
sentence were something like 博士達の船は水際で魚を捕っていた, then it would refer to the A
area.

