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I think it's known that some intransitive verbs can take を particle and be used as transitive verbs such as for example 「私のことを分かってくれない」. While using 分かる transitively would require specific scenarios or patterns, from the point of view of an English speaker it just naturally makes sense, for the reason that "understand" is a transitive English verb.

On the other hand, there are verbs that are naturally intransitive in both Japanese and English, that simply do not make sense to assign any noun objects, like 死ぬ and "to die". There is no way to imagine "Subject dies object", both in English and Japanese, unless if we modify it to "Subject allows/makes object to die" but that would change the main verb in question, again, both in English and Japanese.

At first I thought 行く and 来る are parts of those naturally intransitive verbs, since there is no way for "Subject goes object" or "Subject comes object". And then I found a proverb 「天馬空を行く」, which made me look up "を行く" on Google. The result? 8.75 millions results. "を来る" has 243K results which are a lot less but still a significant figure that shows that out there, 行く and 来る are used with を. However, my thought still remains, that there is no way for "subject goes object". Looking at sample usages, there seems to be a pattern of the nouns that are modified by "を行く" are roads, path etc, but imagining it in English as "to apply the act of going onto the road as the object" doesn't work to me. "を来る" does not even have any pattern that can be seen among the sample noun objects.

Examples from Google results:

  • お気楽サラリーマンジャングルを行く！
  • 歴史街道を行く
  • 一歩先を行くPythonプログラマが読むべきOSS
  • 私は私の道を行く
  • 晴れの日を来る
  • 遠い道を来るまでに

So, how do we make sense of 「を行く」 and 「を来る」?

Lukman
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    Even with `die` in English, you can make it transitive. The object in these constructions are called cognate objects. `He died a miserable death`. –  Sep 22 '11 at 17:18
  • Not to forget: 蒼空を翔けたいんです :-) (a line in 風をあつめて from Happy End) – xmjx Sep 23 '11 at 06:19
  • @xmjx Does that mean I can interpret all movement-related verbs with を the same way as を行く and を来る (which means "through" as suggested by sawa below)? – Lukman Sep 23 '11 at 06:58
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    @Lukman: As far as I know, "through" is not the best translation, either, but を means more like "place of movement". I understand "through" as the act of entering something, going across it and leaving it again. But English isn't my first language and I'm not exactly good at Japanese either. Plus, I could not find anything about this usage of を in any of my Japan Times grammar dictionaries. – xmjx Sep 24 '11 at 09:23
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    You could say 'walk the road' in English... – deutschZuid Jan 19 '14 at 19:16
  • @user468 it's actually a resultatieve subject complement. If English still had cases it would be in the nominative case an it's similar to “I become a corpse.” such subject complements can even be combined with actual objects such as in “I started my life a fortunate man.” where “a fortunate man” is a subject complement. – Zorf Jul 23 '21 at 04:18
  • @Zorf, in _"I become a corpse"_, if English had Germanic cases, "corpse" would be in the dative, not nominative. We see a remnant of that if we rephrase the English as _"I become **him**"_, where "him" is the form used for direct objects (accusative) and indirect objects (dative). For _"I started my life a fortunate man"_, the "fortunate man" is the state -- this sentence can be analyzed as missing an "as" before "a fortunate man". – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 04 '22 at 01:09
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    @EiríkrÚtlendi “I become him.” is a modern innovation, similar to speakers who say “It is me.” opposed to the older “It is I.”. “I become he.” is the historically correct form. In German one stil says “Ich werde er.”, not “Ich werde ihm”. – Zorf Mar 05 '22 at 15:50
  • @Zorf, thank you for prompting me to revisit German grammar -- clearly I had misremembered something. Re: the English, I wonder if that might have been influenced by the alternative sense of "become" as in "to be fitting or appropriate to", which does take the dative / indirect object form. I note too that Danish seems to have mirrored English case shifts in phrasing like "it is me" / "det er mig", where prescriptive English grammar and German grammar both use the nominative "it is I" / "es ist ich". – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 31 '22 at 18:49
  • There's always an alternative interpretation of subject/object complement. It's simply a part of a complex predicate composed of a copula and an adjective or a noun. – user1602 Jan 28 '23 at 20:54

3 Answers3

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Think of it as through.

空をゆく
'go through the sky'

ジャングルを行く
'go through a jungle'

歴史街道を行く
'go through a historic street'

一歩先を行く
'go through (a path) one step ahead'

私の道を行く
'go through my own way'

晴れの日を来る
'come through a sunny day (atmosphere)'

遠い道を来る
'come through a long road'

  • Can I use を行く in casual conversation, e.g. この道を行こう, or is it only used in songs, headlines etc? – Lukman Sep 23 '11 at 03:56
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    @Lukman It is completely fine in casual conversation. A school teacher may say to a student: `廊下を走るな`. –  Sep 23 '11 at 04:26
  • I wouldn't say that “*橋を歩く*” means “*I walk through the bridge.*”, but simply “on”. It is used for the medium on which one moves, which may or may not sound natural in English with “through”. In fact, in English one can also use an object and say “*I walk the bridge.*” or “*I sail the seas.*”, but not “*I fly the sky.*” – Zorf Mar 15 '22 at 14:21
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Another way to think of を in this sense is to do some action which "leaves something behind you", either literally or figuratively. Here are some additional examples:

  • 公園を散歩する　→　Walk (through) the park; the park is "behind" you after you've walked through it.
  • 家を出る　→　Leave home; home is now "behind" you in your time-line of activities
  • 階段を下りる　→　Go down the stairs; same as walking example
  • 大学を卒業する　→　Graduate from a university; you're "leaving behind" student life as you go forward into your future
  • 道を通り抜ける　→　Make your way down the street; same as walking example
Chocolate
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istrasci
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    This makes sense to me, except for abstract object, for example what do I leave behind in 一歩先を行く? And does it mean that in 私の道を行く I'm leaving my own way behind (which sounds like abandoning my own way rather than honoring it)? – Lukman Sep 23 '11 at 17:22
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    For any movement verbs, just think of it like the red-airplane-line from Indiana Jones. As you move (either literally or figuratively like in 私の道を行く), you're leaving a trail behind you. In this case, you're not abandoning your own way, you're leaving behind your starting point/state (which is when you *hadn't* done the things you set out to do). – istrasci Sep 23 '11 at 17:37
  • Got it! Thanks for this alternative approach. – Lukman Sep 23 '11 at 17:43
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For 行く, one could think of it the way one does the transitive use of to go in English (which does exist, scroll down to the transitive definitions). One of your examples provides an easy and appropriate example of this, "私は私の道を行く". I'd put this as "I go my own road." The method doesn't always work with a literal, word-by-word translation, but it might help with pinning down the concept behind the meaning of a phrase.

gibbdude
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