Lesson 12 Verb Causality in New Japanese Book 2

"Xi" and "Xiao" are both automatic words and other verbs.

Other verbs are equivalent to English transitive verbs, followed by objects, forming a verb-object structure. On the other hand, automatic words have meaning without objects.

He moved: others failed and smiled.

Automatic: laugh and cry.

There is no content, just a simple smile.

And the first sentence "laugh" is obviously the object of laughter, that is, the failure of others.

In other words, the "laugh" here should be translated as "ridicule".

Example: white-faced classmates, talking and laughing.

"ぶ" and "Xiao" have no objects. They just tell jokes to amuse students and make them laugh. There is no explanation of what to laugh at, and there is no content, so ""and "small" here are automatic words. Replace "に" with "を". "

Automatic verbs are relative, not absolute. Relative to a word meaning, they can be automatic words or other verbs.

I hope I can help you!