90751
> 明日から収穫祭だ。 今日は **その** 前夜祭だということで、実質、今日から収穫祭は始まっていると言っていい。

収穫祭 being the festival to which 前夜祭 refers.

Usually I find myself comfortable considering その as a rough equivalent of
"that", but in this specific context it doesn't look very appropriate. If I
had to guess, this その here looks more like "(Regarding) that", that being the
previously mentioned festival, which makes sense to me despite this specific
function not being mentioned in the kokugo jiten I own. So I wonder, how does
this その work on a linguistic level?
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2021-09-29T15:07:12.247
90559
2021-10-15T14:21:49.230
42110
question
meaning word-usage
Usage of その here?
The source of the confusion seems that you misunderstand the meaning of 前夜祭,
which literal means _pre-festival night_ or _eve festival_. Usually it refers
to festive activities held at night before the beginning（i.e., the eve) of a
festival (e.g. it happens on October 10 when the festival starts from October
11).

As suggested in the comment, その here is _its_. Thus it means _The harvest
festival starts from tomorrow, Today is its 'eve festival', so practically we
can say the harvest festival already has started today_.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-15T14:21:49.230
90751
2021-10-15T14:21:49.230
45489
90559
answer