Hi all. I have encountered a problem in the Green Kanzen Master 2 kyu grammar book. I am going through the grammar points, and have reached the first mini-test.

Questions 11-15 on p.10 of the Kanzen are about what form of each expression to use (e.g. oujite/oujite wa/ouji/oujita, yotte,yoreba,yori,yoru etc). I simply don't understand the rules for when you use each of these. Can anyway recommend a useful place to learn the rules, as looking through the rest of the book there are plenty of grammar points that have multiple forms.

Cheers,

SSK

It doesn't look like they show it very well here, or maybe just as not as well as it seemed that they did in the 1Q book...気のせいかな

Anyway, a trend I've seen is that the example sentences are there to illustrate when the different forms are used. Since they don't explain it, you kind of have to look at it and see what's happening with each form yourself.

A lot of times, the ーた form of the verbs is the one being used 'as an adjective' to modify a noun. Which is the reason 応じた works here.
ーての also works in the same fashion for certain things, which is why についた isn't right. But yeah, if you look in the example sentences, they're sort of there.

I guess the one's I particularly don't understand are when to use 応じ、より and つき.

For this question: 地震に＿＿＿被害は予測以上だった　(choices: よって、よれば、より、よる) I got the answer wrong (it's より)

For this question: 次は、パリから最新のファッションに＿＿＿報告です (choices: ついて、ついては、つき、ついての) I got it right （ついての), but would have no idea when つき would be the correct answer.

stevesayskanpai Wrote:For this question: 地震に＿＿＿被害は予測以上だった　(choices: よって、よれば、より、よる) I got the answer wrong (it's より)

So in my copy of KM2 this is 第I部 練習問題1.13, and the answer booklet says it's (d) よる. This may be what has you confused :-)

For a lot of these grammar items where there's a set like によって、により、による, the plain form (による) is used when it's modifying a noun, and the other two are used when the subordinate clause is modifying the whole sentence (having basically the same meaning; により is a bit more "written/formal" [*]). What KM classifies as sub-meanings A,B,C,D all work with any of these forms. Then によっては is always meaning E, and によると / によれば are the "according to X" meaning of item 14.

[*] In fact for により DIJG says that it can replace によって for the "depending on" meaning, for the method/means meaning provided the means isn't a concrete tangible object, and can't be used for the 'cause/passive agent' meaning. I didn't know that until I just looked it up :-)

So in this question, the answers are mostly purely grammatically speaking possible, but only one of them makes actual sense. よれば would mean "according to the quake". より is apparently out (see [*] above) and even if it wasn't would be the same as よって; よって gives "the damage was greater than expected and the reason it was greater than expected was the earthquake"; you could maybe contrive a context where that made sense, but much better is よる, which gives "the damage caused by the quake was greater than expected".

Quote:For this question: 次は、パリから最新のファッションに＿＿＿報告です (choices: ついて、ついては、つき、ついての) I got it right （ついての), but would have no idea when つき would be the correct answer.

As above, つき is OK more or less when ついて is, but is restricted to more formal-sounding writing or speech.

Basically, KM doesn't have any kind of explanation of things in this kind of detail; unless you really enjoy trying to make deductions from a handful of example sentences I recommend backing it up with an actual grammar reference. (In the introduction it says it's intended to be used in parallel with an intermediate level textbook; the assumption is that you have a teacher or another text for detailed grammar explanations...)

Wow, pm215 that was an absolutely fantastic answer, thanks so much! It all makes sense haha

Interesting that により and によって are similar in usage - this makes me think that if there's a JLPT multiple choice question with them both, its unlikely that either is the answer (much as with とともに。にしたがって・につれて, for example, which also have broadly similar meanings) - although these kinds of deductions are always a bit dangerous.

Anyway, you're absolutely right that I should be backing up the grammar with a dictionary, which would preferably be どんな時どう使う, but financial and resource constraints mean that I only have the 完全 and JGram to work with.

And of course this forum - so thanks again for your help!

Actually I have EXACTLY the same problem and although pm215's explanation was awesome I fear that I still didn't understand it completely.
Maybe it's because you explained it using a concrete example (namely "ni yoru").
Is there a general rule for all of these?
e.g. ～ぬきで（は）　・　～ぬきに（は）　・　～ぬきの　・　をぬきにして（は）　・　はぬきにして
etc. ??

Also, I always try to back up my grammar from Kanzen Master with the "Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Grammar", but even with that there are so many things that need more explanation. Is there any book that I could use to back up the dictionary and the kanzen book?

If you want a general rule, I think it is that verbs in grammatical formations connect to the rest of the sentence in the same way that plain old verbs do. So plain or plain past verb forms will be modifying a following noun, te forms affect the whole of the rest of the sentence, and masu-stem is like a written version of a te-form, and all these things are just the usual rules for verbs.

The ぬき examples aren't the same because ぬき here is behaving like a noun, not a verb, but the same principle applies. So you can see that to connect to the following noun you're going to need ぬきの. ぬきに is the adverbial use. ぬきで is doing what て forms usually do ("representing some sort of existing state, completed action, or started action"). Xをぬきにして and Xはぬきにして ("with the exception of X, leaving aside X") are probably best learned as special cases, although you'll note that the ぬき fits into the rest of the sentence as any noun would in Nにして and the にして fits into the larger sentence like a normal て form.