3281
Hi all I was wondering what is the difference between these two sentences:

>   1. 「決して悪気があっての回答ではないです。」
>
>   2. 「決して悪気がある回答ではないです。」
>
>

I can't really make out the gist of the meaning of 「あっての」.

[WWWJDIC](http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-
bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1MUE%E3%81%82%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6%E3%81%AE)'s explanation of
「あっての」 is _"which can exist solely due to the presence of"_ (rather
confusing..) and the example sentences do not really give much clue to the
meaning/usage of the word.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-09-24T11:59:25.363
3269
2015-06-01T23:45:47.687
2011-12-29T05:38:01.983
264
question
grammar word-choice words relative-clauses
「悪気があっての答え」 vs 「悪気がある答え」
Yes, `～あっての` indicates an almost 100% dependency on the ～ part. My book
defines it as `「～があるという条件があってはじめて～が可能」ということを強調する`. Here are the accompanying
examples that might make more sense:

>   * **愛あっての結婚生活だ。** 愛がなければ、一緒に暮らす意味がない。 → A marriage (lifestyle) depends
> completely on love. If there's no love, there's no point in living together.
>   * 私たちは **お客様あっての仕事** ですから、お客様を何より大切にしています。 → Ours is a job based entirely
> around our clients, so we always place the highest importance on them.
>

As for your examples, it's hard to tell the difference in the meaning. It's
almost like the first one admits that it might have been somewhat malicious
("It is by no means a 100% malicious answer (but it might have been a
little).") Whereas the second one seems like absolutely nothing about it was
malicious at all. Tough call.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-09-24T18:07:11.273
3274
2015-06-01T23:45:47.687
2015-06-01T23:45:47.687
78
78
3269
answer
I think that the あっての in your example is different from the one in the
dictionary.

悪気があっての回答 means “a reply given out of malice.” 悪気がある回答 means “a malicious
reply.” The former describes the state of the person who made the reply,
whereas the latter describes an attribute of the reply itself. So I would
translate the two examples as

>   1. I did not reply (do the reply) out of malicious intent by any means.
>   2. The reply is not malicious by any means.
>
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-09-25T10:53:24.213
3281
2011-09-25T18:43:19.050
2011-09-25T18:43:19.050
264
15
3269
answer