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So, I was reading through a list of options in Japanese when I saw "SharePointで開く." My initial reaction was to read it as あく but it felt wrong and thought that maybe it was ひらく. I checked this link and it said that あく is intransitive but ひらく can be both transitive and intransitive.

In the end, I decided that it should be read as ひらく because although there was no を to tell that the verb was transitive, I think it was already obvious from the context that it meant [フォルダを]SharePointで開く which means that あく wouldn't work in this case.

Is my line of reasoning correct? Or can this be read as あく (given the absence of を)?

Options

rebuuilt
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2 Answers2

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Your reasoning is perfectly correct. It's "SharePointで開く【ひらく】". Even in English, this can be said without explicitly mentioning the object, like "Open with SharePoint".

naruto
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You have an object in your sentence (i.e. SharePoint)

Because you have an object in your sentence, you are using a 開くas a transitive verb.

Because you are using 開くas a transitive verb, you read it as "ひらく"

El Sushiboi
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    But “Sharepoint” is not the object here? If it was it would be marked by を. Additionally, you can even use 〜で with intransitive verbs too, like 郵便で届く. – Darius Jahandarie May 21 '20 at 22:47
  • I agree with @DariusJahandarie. "SharePoint" is not the object but the means by which you perform the action which in this case is 開く – rebuuilt May 22 '20 at 00:06
  • I agree with this reasoning, except that SharePoint isn't the object; the object is an implied このファイル or the like. The transitive form should absolutely still be used: if there were a "dialog box" window with a labelled button for closing, I'd expect to see 閉じる. 閉める would also be possible; but you would never see 閉まる - the button is directed at you, and you're not closing yourself, you're closing a thing. Similarly with 開く - it's ひらく because it can't be あく, and the okurigana doesn't support あける. – Micah Cowan May 25 '20 at 12:23