Related -ru and -su verbs?

Japanese
#1

I don’t know if I’m simply imagining things, but is there some set connection between -ru and -su verbs that are very similar? e.g. 治す (naosu; to cure, to heal) and 治る (naoru; to be cured, to be healed); 返す (kaesu; to return (something), to restore) and 返る (kaeru: to return, to come back); 出す (dasu; to take out, to go out) and 出る (deru; to leave, to exit).

In the examples above the -su are transitive and the -ru are intransitive; is there a similar relation as is seen in, e.g. -まる and -める, where -eru denotes the transitive verb and -aru denotes the intransitive? That -su denotes the transitive and -ru denotes the/a related intransitive?

Or am I just barking up the wrong tree? :smiley:

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#2

No you are headed in very much in the right direction.

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#3

There’s something like eight or nine combinational pairs that transitive verb pairs can fall into, with the more transitive and less transitive variants almost always falling into the same endings, e.g. a ～む～める pair will always have the む ending verb be intransitive with the める pair being transitive. I say almost because the one pairing that breaks this rule is the ～く～ける pair. It’s annoying, but in general the く variant will be the meaning that “feels” more like the main meaning, transitively speaking, and then ける will have the inverse transitivity.

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#4

My 2 yen on this is that transitivity is a lot like rendaku: there are some rules here and there that sometimes work, sometimes don’t, and knowing them can be generally useful but at the end of the day Japanese has so many exceptions that no rule will work 100% of the time. :rofl:

For instance, 肉球 toe beans (like cat/dog paws, super cute word) is written にくきゅう. Following rendaku “rules”, you’d try and read it as にっきゅう right?

My suggestion is to instead learn verbs first as a transitivity pair and rather than memorizing rules, expose yourself to a lot of content. After a while, you naturally begin picking up on which is which and it becomes second hand.

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#5

Cure Dolly had a video on this subject. There are some patterns that work some of the time but there is no rule. Too many exceptions. If you’re interested I would recommend watching it. I personally hope that exposure will be enough to learn all of that as I hate rules and patterns.

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#6

Thanks, I’ve never heard of them, will check out their content シ