When is it okay to use あります with a living subject?


When learning Japanese everyone's taught いる is for a living thing and ある is
for non-living things. However, I recently saw the following sentence ...

> あと、サッカー選手でもあります。

... which ends in ある / あります for a living subject, assuming were not talking
about a dead soccer player!

Now the following make uses of ある sense to me:

> 〜である  
>  〜がある  
>  〜にある

But in my mind these adhere to the living/dead rule learned in those first
Nihongo classes all those years ago.

So where does もあります fit in? How should I think of this in English (equivalent
phrase)?




`で（は）あります` is the expanded form of `です`. So when you say 「XはYです」, it is really
「XはYで（は）あります」. From this, you can easily see the negative form (ではありません). And
also でもあります as in your example. `でもあります` means "is also".

> あの人はサラリーマンです。あと、サッカー選手でもあります。 → That guy is a business worker (salary man).
> He is also a soccer player.

That's the reasoning as to why it's あります in this situation. As to why です is a
contraction of `で（は）あります` and not `で（は）います`, I'm not sure.




`で（は）あります` is the expanded form of `です`. So when you say 「XはYです」, it is really
「XはYで（は）あります」. From this, you can easily see the negative form (ではありません). And
also でもあります as in your example. `でもあります` means "is also".

> あの人はサラリーマンです。あと、サッカー選手でもあります。 → That guy is a business worker (salary man).
> He is also a soccer player.

That's the reasoning as to why it's あります in this situation. As to why です is a
contraction of `で（は）あります` and not `で（は）います`, I'm not sure.

