My understanding is that the two mean the same thing, but bunpro doesn’t accept っこない as an alternate answer for えない the way it does for ようがない. What’s going on here?
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Nvm, it’s probably because it asked for a formal answer and っこない isn’t formal
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in situations like those, bunpro would still give you a “can you use a more formal grammar point?” notification
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maybe it’s just a nuance thing. っこない meaning “no chance of, no way that; certainly not, will never happen,” and えない meaning “unable to, cannot”.
Both express that that magnitude of earthquake will not happen, but only one expresses that it literally cannot happen. However, I’m not expert, so take that with a grain of salt.
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I’m with kelth on this, the difference in formality and underlying structure is different enough to distinguish the two grammar points from each other, even though they basically mean the same thing.
っこない is apparently a contraction of ことはない, so it seems closer to わけがない or はずがない. I feel like it implies something is impossible, but does so by just flat out rejecting that some situation ever happens.
vs 得ない which is basically just like することができない, and feels more like an explicit statement of 可能性 to me.
That’s my interpretation, could be wrong–I feel like this might be an overly literal interpretation of the grammar points. I agree that there really doesn’t seem to be much difference in nuance when you look at how the two grammar points are actually used.
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Even if your distinction is correct, and it very well may be, I’ve seen bunpro forgive much bigger divides in grammar. If your interpretation is the case, then I think bunpro should do as they do with similar issues and make it clear what the difference is when answering incorrectly, e.g. “Almost! Can you use a grammar point that is strictly the possibility of something occurring”
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Yeah, I catch you point I think that some added context hints would be appreciated.
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