English Translation
A river runs down through the valley.
Shouldn’t the “を” here be “に”, or is it fine in this context?
A river runs down through the valley.
Shouldn’t the “を” here be “に”, or is it fine in this context?
@TisYanni
Very interesting question I have never thought about! Particle を is the right one and we don’t say に in this context.
Note: 谷の間 (pron. たにのあいだ) is understandable but 谷間 (pron. たにま) is better.
谷間に人が取り残されている describes the fact that a missing person cannot move from and left AT the bottom of the valley, so the image is “pinpointed”. In this case, we use particle に (at). It’s the same as そのレストランに10時に到着した (I arrived at the restaurant at 10am.)
On the other hand, 谷間を川が流れている is grammatically similar to 東京・大阪間を自動車で移動する (I go from Tokyo to Osaka by car) and ヨーロッパ各国を旅行した (I travelled across European countries.) There is no “pinpointed” image here. The subject takes a certain action, and particle を refers to the scope range of the action. In this case, we use particle を.