Quote:
Originally Posted by steven
私はボブの電話番号を分かる。→私は電話番号が分かる。
Since 電話番号 (or Bob's phone number is the direct object of 分かる, or what you know) is the "direct object" in English, we are likely to use を with it instead of が in this situation, even though が is better.
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This is why I support people learning the difference between transitive and intransitive early on. If you know 分かる is intransitive, you know it
cannot take an を ever. 分ける is the related transitive verb.
One of my professors explained this by saying that when you 分かる something, it's more like the subject has been divided up and sorted into its proper storage containers in the brain. So even the action itself can be thought of as intransitive (namely, that the material has been sorted out, rather than your brain sorting the material).
Now, I don't have a dictionary on hand that explains the etymology of 分かる, so I can't say for certain if that's actually how the word's usage for "to understand" came about. But it doesn't strike me as anything more than a metaphorical meaning that became widespread over time, given that the kanji used for the verb indicates a cutting or splitting or dividing.