父は食べるのが大好きなばかりか、料理をするのも大好きです。

[GenjiMain]

Hi all.

So I'm learning ～ばかりか～さえ and I'm a bit confused about this sentence. In the first part, I understand のが is used as a nominaliser. What I don't understand is のも in the second part. My first thought was that も simply replaced が and のも acted as a nominaliser same as のが. However, the sentence is missing さえ and the textbook says も can be used to replace さえ. So, which is it? Is も replacing さえ or が? (If it replaces both, please explain).

 

[Toritoribe]

の is the nominalizer, not のが. が, も and さえ are all particles, and が is used to indicate the object of 大好き（だ） there. As you would know, も means "too/also", and さえ is "even", thus, さえ is used for an extreme example. That's the difference between も and さえ in nuance.

cf.
〇父は食べるのを好むばかりか、料理をするのも好みます。
〇父は食べるのを好むばかりか、料理をするのさえ好みます。
×父は食べるのを好むばかりか、料理をするのを好みます。

〇父は飲食が大好きなばかりか、調理も大好きです。
〇父は飲食が大好きなばかりか、調理さえ大好きです。
×父は飲食が大好きなばかりか、調理が大好きです。

 

[GenjiMain]

I think I understand. So in this particular example, the speaker believes that it is surprising that their father likes to eat, but not extremely surprising?

I have one additional question after I found something interesting. My dictionary states that when using ばかりか さえ, the phrase preceding ばかりか is something expected while the phrase following it it something unexpected. Two pages later the book explains that it is similar to the expression ばかりで（は）なく , but is only used when there is a high degree of unexpectedness between the two phrases. It then says the following sentence would be unacceptable: あの人は勉強ばかりか、スポーツさえ出来る。 and states that ばかりで（は）なく would be more appropriate. Funnily enough, I found a page online covering the topic, using a very similar sentence: 花子さんはスポーツが上手なばかりか、成績も優秀である。

So, what are your thoughts on this? Would you say the sentence 花子さんはスポーツが上手なばかりか、成績も優秀である。sounds weird? Is ばかりで（は）なく more appropriate here?

 

[Toritoribe]

The structures ～ばかりか…さえ or ～ばかりか…も don't have a nuance of "surprising" by itself. It's just like "not only ~, but even..." or "not only ~, but also..." in English.

It seems to me that the explanation is just saying about the nuance of "even", which さえ has. I don't think あの人は勉強ばかりか、スポーツさえ出来る。 is unacceptable. It's OK if the speaker think スポーツ is an extreme example, i.e., if they think that it's not so common that people who are good at studies are also good at sports. What do you think about "He/She is good at not only studies, but even sports"? It's unacceptable at all?