Differences in meaning of using へ, に, or で in marking locations.


in "明日、姉とデパート＿買い物に行きます。" why is へ favoured over で in my workbook? If i ask
myself the question "明日は、何をする" Can i answer it with "買い物に行く" and make ”デパート”
an incidental location? That was how i justified my choice of "で"

To justify the choice of へ, I tried to reason like this:

If "デパート" is the domain for which "買い物に行く" is true, it would make no sense
because there would be no "行く"-ing to be done. "買い物に行く" would only make sense
if my domain is outside of "デパート". If my domain cannot be "デパート", I cannot use
で to mark it.Am i right?

Is デパート **に** 買い物に行きます grammatically correct? If it is grammatically correct,
then how is it different from the case where へ is used?

To distinguish them, I tried to reason like this:

I'm interpreting the case where へ is used to mean "I'm going to the store to
shop (but it does not mean all the shopping is going to be done there since へ
only ever indicates direction)" and the case of に to mean "I'm going to the
store to shop (and only the store which i mentioned will the shopping be
done)"

Or is it just a simple case of "degree of politeness", and for both cases they
mean the same thing just that when へ is used, it's more polite by virtue of
referring to the location more indirectly than if に were used?




>   * デパートへ買い物に行きます
>   * デパートに買い物に行きます
>

are both grammatical with subtle difference in nuance, but using `で` is
totally ungrammatical. It is not the level of 'favoring over'. In your
example, `買い物に` is an adverbial phrase telling the purpose, so the core
predicate is `行く` 'go'. That requires a destination. You cannot go somewhere
while staying at that place. Using `で` means that the whole process of going
will happen within that single point, which contradicts with the meaning of
going.

As for the difference in the nuance between `へ` and `に`, the former emphasizes
the process/direction of going whereas the latter just means destination. In
both cases, shopping is done entirely at the destination. But the difference
is subtle, and you probably do not need to care about it at the level where
you are wondering whether `で` is appropriate in this context.




>   * デパートへ買い物に行きます
>   * デパートに買い物に行きます
>

are both grammatical with subtle difference in nuance, but using `で` is
totally ungrammatical. It is not the level of 'favoring over'. In your
example, `買い物に` is an adverbial phrase telling the purpose, so the core
predicate is `行く` 'go'. That requires a destination. You cannot go somewhere
while staying at that place. Using `で` means that the whole process of going
will happen within that single point, which contradicts with the meaning of
going.

As for the difference in the nuance between `へ` and `に`, the former emphasizes
the process/direction of going whereas the latter just means destination. In
both cases, shopping is done entirely at the destination. But the difference
is subtle, and you probably do not need to care about it at the level where
you are wondering whether `で` is appropriate in this context.

