chochajin Wrote:大阪から神戸____地震がありました。
a) まで b) にかけて c) について d) に対して
Okay, so I chose a) which is wrong (b) is correct, BECAUSE the "Dictionary of Japanese grammar" taught me that only "made" can be used with specific time and place statements, so if you say "from 9am to 10pm" or "from Shibuya to Shinjuku" then you can't use "nikakete" - at least that's what's written in the book. Why is "made" wrong then??? *headache*
Probably the grammar book you have is trying to say pretty much the same thing as pm215's explanation. It seems like this is the most popular explanation for にかけて vs. まで you can find in textbooks for foreigners. But, to be honest, I don't think it's accurate.
Both can refer to a certain kind of range such as "from X to Y" as in "from 9am to 10pm." There are several usages when it comes to まで as a range marker. If you're interested, read advanced stuff written for native speakers or for linguists who have as good a command of Japanese as native speakers. I omit the detail here and will give a shorter explanation that doesn't distinguish different kinds of range marker までs.
The difference between the two Japanese range words is similar to "each" vs. "every" in English. When you use まで, you mentally put everything in the range into a group and see it as a single unite. The whole range is covered by the group. In this sense, まで is like "every" and "whole." When you use にかけて, you mentally see things in the range individually. I think the individualness (Is this even a word?) is weaker than what the word "each" suggests, but にかけて has less wholeness than まで.
A trickier point is that it's not the words that make the speaker see things individually or as a group. It's the speaker that chooses one from the other because s/he already has a mental model when a word is spoken. In other words, if things in a range are always seen individually in the Japanese culture, whether your culture/language treats the same things as a group doesn't matter. So never apply this individual vs. whole rule when you produce your own sentence. Use it as an aid to understand nuances.
Anyway, I'll explain this individual vs. whole thing a little more. If you want to say "He was dressed from head to foot in white," it's 頭の先からつま先まで, i.e., you see everything in the range as a single unit. But if you talk about a girl who kissed a guy from his neck to his chest, 首から胸にかけて is better. The reason is that the "whole" body kind of sense makes you see the white clothes as a group while the "part of his body" kind of sense combined with the "each kiss" kind of mental image evokes individualness in your mind. If she licks him rather than kisses him, 首から胸まで is slightly better. The range doesn't strongly evoke wholeness, but one whole lick from point A to B doesn't have the "each" kind of sense a number of kisses do. By the same token, if a person have red spots all over the body from head to foot, wholeness and individualness conflicts. In this case, the all over the body kind of wholeness wins. But if it's all over a limited part of his body, individualness often wins.
If you use a word that has a strong wholeness sense such as 全体に, it means you're seeing a situation with the wholeness sense. Here are illustrative examples to show how the individual vs. whole thing works:
頭の先からつま先まで疱疹が出ている -> Good. You don't use かけて. The whole body sense is so strong that blisters' individualness contribute little to the まで vs. かけて battle.
首から胸まで全体に疱疹が出ている -> ok. But you can also use かけて instead. Individualness factors are the limited range sense and blisters. But 全体に indicates you're saying the "whole" area is covered by blisters.
首から胸まで疱疹が出ている -> ok. This carries a nuance that the speaker is emphasizing "all over the range" without using an explicit word. かけて is better if it's a neutral sentence because it's not the whole body and and rashes are usually seen individually.
首から胸にかけて疱疹が出ている -> Good. Everything in this sentence is of the individual kind.
Another good example is weather. You'll often hear sentences like "明日は大阪から東京にかけて雨でしょう." This means each city in the range gets rain. 大阪から東京まで雨 is ok if you have a strong image of the "region between Osaka and Tokyo" and mean it rains tomorrow in the region. But this wording could also mean, say, one incredibly huge cloud is covering half of Japan's main island and the whole area under the cloud is going to get the same rain from the huuuuuge cloud. This interpretation is nearly impossible if you use にかけて.
So, にかけて is better in your example because the average native speaker doesn't have a strong region kind of sense that spans from Osaka to Kobe. Also, while it's technically one big earthquake, native Japanese speakers think that each city got hit an earthquake to a different degree. This might be another reason まで sounds odd.
I think the reason some people say にかけて is a vaguer range is this:
Here are two lines of Xs.
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X XX X XXX X X X X
The first line is easier to see a "set" of Xs. But Xs in the second line appear at random so they're more likely seen as individuals (I think you'll agree if you hide the first line and only see the latter 14 Xs). The length of the two lines Xs lie on are technically the same. The number of Xs are exactly the same. But if you define the range where Xs can appear, don't you think the second one is a little vague? The vagueness is easier to notice if you hide the first line and try to define the range where Xs can appear. If there weren't the first line of Xs on top of the second line, you might say, "Xs appear around here" thinking there should be a little margin in the range at each end. But don't you think it's natural to define the range of the first line as "Xs appear from here to there" by pointing the exact Xs? If someone says there should be a margin at each edge of the first line, don't you think you can pinpoint the edge?
If you assume the lines are time axises and Xs events, you get a pair of illustrative examples of まで (the first line) and にかけて (the second line), e.g., 午前九時から午後十時
まで規則正しく一時間毎にメールをチェックした。vs. 午前九時から午後十時
にかけて断続的にメールが届いた。Of course, if you see the 14 emails as a unit (individually), you can say まで in the latter example (にかけて in the former example respectively). But in a normal situation native speakers would most likely choose まで for the regular sequence of the same kind of event and にかけて for events that happened at random.
This lines of X example doesn't explain everything, but all example sentences I came up with suggest that the difference is "individual" vs. "whole." I think the "individuals tend to have a vaguer range" thing blinded the textbook authors.
So, which is better for "He knows everything about Japan from kanji to anime"? Of course 漢字からアニメまで何でも知っている because you're not focusing on each individual subfield of knowledge. You're talking about his astounding knowledge as a whole. If you say 漢字からアニメにかけて何でも知っている, it sounds like "He knows kanji well and also knows anime well, and he's also familiar with individual things that fall somewhere between the two. But he doesn't know other things." In fact, you don't need to explicitly say 日本について in the まで version to mean everything about Japanese. But the にかけて version sounds like there is a list that includes kanji and anime as items, i.e., you sound like you're talking about each item between kanji and anime on the Japanese thing list.
chochajin Wrote:このカーテンは_______生地を使っています。
a) 燃えにくい b) 燃えがたい c) 燃えやすい d) 燃えがちな
Why can't it be b)? Why is it a)? Because one can't think that there's a curtain made of something that's impossible to burn? Is that why?
I could give a loooooooong explanation for this. But I think I already spent too much space. I'll post a short explanation when I have time.
By the way, why is c) wrong? Or can multiple items be considered right?
