Why is「伊藤さんは仕事が多くて休みすぎのようです。」Wrong?


How come 「伊藤さんは仕事が多くて休みすぎのようです。」isn't grammatically correct?

According to native speakers, this means something like:

> Itou-san has a lot of work, therefore he seems to be resting too much

Which, yea, doesn't make sense.

But why does that not get interpreted as:

> Itou-san has a lot of work and it seems like he's taking too many breaks.

Like even though Itou has a lot of work, he's still taking too many breaks,
lazy bastard.

I've read this article titled "[te-form (て-form) for Cause or
Reason](https://www.learn-japanese-adventure.com/te-form-cause-reason.html)",
where the author states that the constraints for using て as "therefore" is
that the resulting sentence must not contain "volition or intention".

Does 休み contain volition or intention?

A friend tried to explain that it's about the のよう, so the sentence is more
like:

> Itou-san has a lot of work and it's like he is working too much

So if this were the case, て is "and".

But if I changed the sentence to:

> 伊藤さんは仕事が多くて、休みすぎです

This is still wrong? Even though there's no のよう

Can anybody explain to me what's going on here? How come Japanese speakers
read the て here as a cause, but not in 「妹は８歳で、猫が好きで、かわいくて、優しい子です。」?

Made 2 posts on HiNative about this:

<https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/18883561>

<https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/18896083>




The reason your sentence, with or without のよう, sounds unnatural is not because
the て-form is interpreted as indicating a reason or cause. I’m a native
speaker, and I don’t particularly read the meaning of “therefore” in it.

However, the sentence still sounds unnatural because the main clause, which
follows the て-form, says something that goes contrary to what you would
naturally expect from what was stated in the preceding part. It’s not grammar
that’s wrong. The sentence goes against the natural flow of logic the
listener/reader expects from the て-form conjunction.

For example, the following sentence sounds reasonably natural.

> 伊藤さんは仕事が多くてあまり寝ていないようです。  
>  Itou-san has a lot of work and it seems like he's not sleeping very well.

For your sentence to sound natural, it would need a different kind of
conjunction. such as のに.

> 伊藤さんは仕事が多いのに休みすぎです。  
>  Despite the fact Itou has a lot of work, he is taking too many breaks.

The following sentence sounds even more natural, but that’s a different issue.

> 伊藤さんは仕事がたくさんあるのに休みすぎです。




The reason your sentence, with or without のよう, sounds unnatural is not because
the て-form is interpreted as indicating a reason or cause. I’m a native
speaker, and I don’t particularly read the meaning of “therefore” in it.

However, the sentence still sounds unnatural because the main clause, which
follows the て-form, says something that goes contrary to what you would
naturally expect from what was stated in the preceding part. It’s not grammar
that’s wrong. The sentence goes against the natural flow of logic the
listener/reader expects from the て-form conjunction.

For example, the following sentence sounds reasonably natural.

> 伊藤さんは仕事が多くてあまり寝ていないようです。  
>  Itou-san has a lot of work and it seems like he's not sleeping very well.

For your sentence to sound natural, it would need a different kind of
conjunction. such as のに.

> 伊藤さんは仕事が多いのに休みすぎです。  
>  Despite the fact Itou has a lot of work, he is taking too many breaks.

The following sentence sounds even more natural, but that’s a different issue.

> 伊藤さんは仕事がたくさんあるのに休みすぎです。

