Are there verbs that are neither intransitive nor transitive?


i was taught that verbs are either transitive or intransitive.

but what kind of verb is 分かる ?

[WWWJDIC lists it as intransitive.](http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-
bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1MUE%E3%82%8F%E3%81%8B%E3%82%8B)

Yet the replies/comments from this thread [Why is it 日本語がわかります instead of
日本語をわかります?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2505/why-is-it-
nihongo-ga-wakarimasu-instead-of?newsletter=1&nlcode=6357|e104) argues that を
can be used with 分かる.

so is 分かる both a transitive verb _and_ an intransitive verb at the same time?




> i was taught that verbs are either transitive or intransitive.

That is unfortunate, because the claim is misleading as long as Japanese is
concerned.

Unlike English, Japanese does not have a strict distinction between transitive
and intransitive verbs. Although some people categorize the verbs which can be
used with ～を as transitive verbs and the other verbs as intransitive verbs, ～を
is just one of the modifiers of a verb in the same way as ～に and ～から, and
these modifiers are optional.

  * ケーキが冷蔵庫に入っているけど、食べないでね。 There is a cake in the fridge, but do not eat it.
  * 昨日は朝まで飲んだ。 I drank overnight yesterday. (From sawa’s answer)

In these sentences, are 食べる and 飲む transitive verbs with ～を modifiers omitted,
or intransitive verbs? I cannot see any point distinguishing these two.

So in Japanese, classifying all verbs to either transitive and intransitive
does not have much use.

What is useful is the transitive-intransitive correspondence such as 動かす and
動く. Note that even in this case, 動かす can be used without an ～を modifier.

わかる usually takes ～が when specifying what is understood, but ～を is also used
in some contexts, as stated in the page which you linked to. One can describe
this as “わかる is usually used as an intransitive verb, but can sometimes also
be used as a transitive verb,” but I do not think that this explanation makes
the situation any easier to understand.




A general answer: The definition of intransitive is the negation of
transitive. Logically, a verb is either intransitive or transitive; there is
no other possibility. You may say that a verb becomes either of them depending
on its usage, but a verb is never "neither intransitive nor transitive".

In this particular case, `を` is not allowed in the kind of construction
mentioned in standard way of speaking. If you actually see it, then it is
either wrong, or the speaker has a different lexical entry for the verb. These
are called idiolect. Simply put, those people are speaking a "different
language". In that case, you can say that the verb in question is either
intransitive or transitive depending on the idiolect.

To answer Lukman's question: Many transitive verbs can be used intransitively
with a specifically implied object. For example, Japanese `飲む` or English
`drink` is a transitive verb:

> ジュースを飲んだ。  
>  I drank juice.

But you can turn it into an intransitive verb by omitting the object and
implying a specific object, in this case 'alcohol':

> 昨日は朝まで飲んだ。  
>  I drank overnight yesterday.

