I was reading the lyrics of a song and found the following line:
あの人あたしをいらない
From the original English song, I can tell that the meaning is that "that person no longer needs me", but why does it use を when 要る is an intransitive verb? Is there a nuance difference?
Words like 好き, 嫌い, 欲しい, ～たい and 要る occasionally take を, especially in complicated sentences, but it's hard to give a clear rule, and the level of acceptance may vary from person to person. One theory is "nominative object". Please see Darius Jahandarie's answer and snailboat's comment here: Usage of ～を好き outside of embedded clauses
That said, 要る is very rarely used with を. This あたしをいらない is comprehensible, but sounds unnatural to me. In general, ～を要る should always be avoided in a simple sentence like this.
～を要る tends to be tolerated in a ～を～と + verb construction (e.g., このパソコンを要ると思う人は連絡してください). BCCWJ also has one (and only one) example of ～を + 要る + と + verb.
I can also find other examples like お金を要るようになった and 心配を要らずに on the net, but I would say ～が要るようになった is almost always safer.
I am not a Japanese native, but a Korean. Korean is similar to Japanese, but in Korean, only a form equivalent to "が/は要らない" is used. In Korean, a form like "を要らない" is considered incorrect, because 要る is an intransitive verb, and the subject of the verb is the thing being required.
If you see the Japanese dictionary, all the examples are using が or は.
「資本が―・る」「暇が―・る」「お世辞は―・らない」 「燃焼させるには酸素が－・る」 「そんなに時間は－・らない」 「金が－・る」 「もっと人手が－・る」
As a Korean, the "を" form bothers me (even with other verbs and adjectives), but I have seem that form being used in Japanese animations quite a lot, so I do not think it is being considered wrong in Japan. But I would avoid that "を" form if possible.
あの人あたしをいらない
I would have said "あの人には私が要らない" or "あの人は私を必要としない".
