> 逢桜「紫音と悠真くんは今年も海外旅行に行くの？」
>
> 紫音「ええ。今年は南半球でバカンスでもしようかなと」
>
> 悠真「とはいえ、僕たちは旅行先で仕事漬けなわけだけど」
>
> 紫音「ですわね。異国で執筆が出来る **だけ** 気分転換にはなりますから」

What is the usage of the だけ in this sentence? It doesn’t seem to be できるだけ. And
I know the construction verb (potential form)+だけ+verb, but the verbs have to
be the same in this construction.
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2022-01-12T17:09:45.980
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question
grammar
Understanding the だけ in this context
Broadly speaking most of だけ's usages fall under two general categories: a
negative sense and a positive one. I think because the negative sense is
taught earlier to us Japanese learners, most people are more familiar with
that sense. But the other meaning is also very common and unfortunately easily
confusable with the negative sense.

The negative sense functions to limit a degree, scope, or reference, and is
explained as:

>   1. 範囲を限定することを表す。「～ばかり」、「～のみ」。([Wiktionary
> Japanese](https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%A0%E3%81%91))  
>  in a negative, limiting sense: only, just, limit ([Wiktionary
> English](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%A0%E3%81%91))
>

But here the other sense is invoked in your text:

>   2. 分量・限度・程度を表す。「～ほど」、「～くらい」、「～かぎり」。  
>  in a positive, non-limiting sense: amount, as much as
>

As explained in that Wiktionary entry:

> ある程度は肯定的に評価できることを表す。
>
>   * おんぼろの中古車だが、走るだけましかな。
>   * タイムはともかく、この悪天候下で完走しただけ立派だ。
>

異国で執筆が出来るだけ: Doing/achieving as much as 異国で執筆が出来る (being able to write in a
foreign country)
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answer