97489
The sentence

> 学生 **でも** 子供 **でもない**

translates to

> [It is] neither a student nor a child.

**Initial Questions:**

  1. First, just confirming: the use of でも here is just で + も, and has nothing to do with with the conjunctive でも, correct?
  2. If we instead wrote the sentence as

> 学生 **も** 子供 **も** ではない

would the sentence still retain its original meaning? (Here I replaced the two
で's with a では, placed right before ない, as we usually see the negative copula).

**Main Question:** Is the main reason that the original sentence splits up the
で's as follows:

> 学生 **で** 子供 **ではない**

..is that the copula is actually just the で particle + ある (or the more archaic
ござる, which also means "to be")? If so, it would make sense why で can be split
from ある (in its ない form) form and placed after 学生 and 子供 (the the two nouns
that "It" is not "within the bounds" of).
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2022-12-03T18:04:18.287
97487
2022-12-03T20:43:47.053
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question
copula
Can the Copula Be Split From its で-particle, as in「学生でも子供でもない」?
> 学生も子供もではない

That is not correct. In Japanese the tense/negation comes always in the end.
You need to say the copula both times to make it clear that you are negating
the state of being of both things.

That is why: `朝ご飯を食べて学校に行く`and `朝ご飯を食べて学校に行った` have different meanings even
though it's just the TE FORM. "will eat" and "ate".

```

    学生でも子供でもない
    
```

`Being also a student, being also a child, is not`. You're doing just like the
previous sentence: `negating/applying tense` in the end.

```

      学生で子供ではない
    
```

That means `one is a student and not a child`. Not really excluding anything.

And yes, `である` is `copulaで+ある` which means literally `exist in the condition
of being X`.

> First, just confirming: the use of でも here is just で + も, and has nothing to
> do with with the conjunctive でも, correct?

Correct.
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2022-12-03T20:19:46.847
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2022-12-03T20:43:47.053
2022-12-03T20:43:47.053
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answer