「〜ますし」の文法と意味は何ですか。

Question

「〜ますし」の文法と意味は何ですか。

例）「しかしわたしたちは、雪の下で何が起きているかわかりますし、起きていることを想像することもできます。」

この「し」の使い方と意味を説明していただけませんか。

Answer 1

I'll answer in English since I think it might be better for the readers of this forum who are more comfortable reading explanations in English.

The word "し" in this case is used after a verb or i-adjective in order to give a feeling of "and", but in a more disconnected sense than using the して (分かりまして in this case) form. Perhaps you could think of it a little like ending the sentence there, and then adding a ”そして” before the next part.

The word is used in both written and spoken language (perhaps more in the latter), and when spoken the intonation on the し drops slightly, and is generally followed by a pause.

Here it is used after the -masu form, so わかります + し => わかりますし. Essentially, it means here "We understand X and...(can also imagine...)"

Here is a page I wrote on this sometime back if you want more examples.

Answer 2

I'll also answer in English, because my Japanese isn't good enough.

My grammar reference book lists し as "a conjunction to indicate 'and' in an emphatic way". Genki lists this particle as the particle to list reasons. For instance:

今日はテニスもしたし、映画も見た
I not only played tennis but also saw a movie today.

Typically, plain endings come before し, but polite endings are also acceptable, as you showed in your sentence, so we could write:

今日はテニスもしましたし、映画も見ました

As for usage, we can put clauses before し. Any clause ending with a noun or na-adjective must retain だ. The resulting component is an adverbial clause.