So I was looking at the verb 降りる on this site and it says that the verb is intransitive. I'm assuming that the verb does not take the を particle but sure enough, I see an example sentence near the top that reads "~~バスを降りました" or something similar to that. Is this grammatically correct or am I missing something here?
Briefly skimming over a couple of resources it does seem that particle を can be used with intransitive verbs as long as those verbs indicate motion and the object is a location. I am not 100% sure on this as I am not really familiar with this usage and to what extend to applies here. sources I found this indication: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/... (at the bottom, right after the table with all the verbs) http://www.guidetojapanese.org... (also at the very bottom, right before the last example sentence)
Looking through the first 10 example sentences on renshuu for 降りる, if を is used then on an object that I would consider to reflect a location (like 水滑り台 or 階段), but I see that sentence number 11 now says ~電車を降りて仕舞いました where I am not sure if this is correct now (or is in this context 電車 to be interpreted as a location)?
I really had to think on this, but I think this is actually easier to think of via English.
バスを降りました. I got off the bus. <--- this is using を, but the bus is clearly not an object being acted upon. It, in this sentence, is a location from which you are removing yourself, I would say.
I think it becomes a bit easier to think about when you consider its pair: 降ろす バスから荷物を降ろした。<-- you are taking down (removing) the luggage from the bus, and the bus (with a different particle) is semantically occupying the same function, but you are acting upon the luggage.