Understanding から and くらい in 「学校から帰ってきて寝るまでくらいだ」

Question

In

学校から帰ってきて寝るまでくらいだ

1. I was under the impression that くらい is an adverbial particle (副助詞), but here it's acting as a noun (名詞)? Can it also function as a noun, or is there an implicit noun after くらい and before だ that's being colloquially dropped (maybe something like 時間)?

2. Here's my rough translation attempt:

It's an approximation (くらいだ) of until (まで) I return home from school and sleep (学校から帰ってきて寝る).

This is pretty awkward :) I assume the sentence actually means:

It's the rough timespan of from when I return from school until I go to sleep.

or

It's roughly from when I return home from school until I go to sleep.

But if that's the case, why isn't there another から after 学校から帰ってきて? I'm not sure if this is grammatical, but I'm tempted to parse the sentence as

• (学校から帰ってきて)から: From (から) after I return home from (から) school
• (寝るまで)まで: until (まで) I sleep
• くらいだ: it's the approximation

Answer 1

I had never heard the term 副助詞 before, but after skimming this I can see why you're confused. A general explanation of how particles classified this way behave is likely beyond the scope of a single answer, and I'm not sure I could write one anyway, so I'm going to try and give a simpler intuitive explanation here.

Most of the 副助詞 in the link above modify meaning in the same way adverbs do, but grammatically can behave like nouns or adverbs. For example:

疲れて倒れるほど走った ~= I ran until I collapsed from exhaustion

「どれぐらい走った？」「疲れて倒れるほどだ」 ~= "How much did you run?" "So much that I collapsed from exhaustion"

In both of these cases, ほど is providing information about the degree/extent of the running, but in the former it grammatically behaves like an adverb and in the latter it behaves like a noun. Note that time also behaves like this, I.E. 2時間寝た and 2時間だ are both okay.

As for the sentence in your question, the previous sentence (which I'm assuming is the one　user3856370 has kindly provided) helps clarify a bit .

ノートに名前を書ける時間は限られている。学校から帰ってきて寝るまでくらいだ

~= The time I can write my name in my notes is limited. It's only the period between when I come home from school and when I sleep.

In the second sentence まで and the ぐらい attached to it behave like nouns for something like ((学校から帰ってきて寝るまで)ぐらい)だ. Note that ぐらい is also used to emphasize the low or minimal extent of something, which is where the "only" in my English translation came from, although I'm not 100% sure about the intended meaning in this case. See here for more information about this.

Edit: Not sure why it's くらい instead of ぐらい in the example, although the pronunciation rules are not super clear (see here)

Answer 2

I offer this as an add-on to @Mindful's fine answer post.

Can it [kurai] also function as a noun?

The word くらい is both a noun and an adverbial particle. This originally was only a noun (cited to at least the 700s), and derives from a compound of 座【くら】 ("seat, place where something is put") + 居【ゐ】 ("being", noun form of verb ゐる, modern いる), literally "being in one's seat" in reference to "the place where one is sitting", extending to mean "one's place: one's position or rank", and then extending further to mean "degree or extent of something". The adverbial senses of "degree, amount, around about" first appear from the 1300s.

If you can read Japanese, more here at Kotobank.

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Separately:

Edit: Not sure why it's くらい instead of ぐらい in the example, although the pronunciation rules are not super clear (see here

The specific pronunciation rules from the NHK:

1. 体言には「ぐらい」が付く。
2. 「この・その・あの・どの」には「くらい」が付く。
3. 用言や助動詞には、普通は「ぐらい」が付くが、「くらい」が付くこともある。

This is consistent with くらい being a noun: when appended to another noun, くらい effectively becomes the second part of a compound noun, which (often) causes rendaku effects to appear. The fluidity when coming after other types of words is probably a reflection of this term's shifting usage, and how native speakers view the word in context.

In the sample sentence itself, the use of the くらい pronunciation could be an indication that the speaker views this くらい as a standalone noun.

Answer 3

For reference, Martin states that these words, 'made', 'kurai', etc. have been variously called 吸着語, 形式名詞 and 形式副詞 by Japanese grammarians.

Both 'made' and 'kurai/gurai' belong to two classes, one which is commonly adnominalized, that is, modified by a preceeding sentence, and one where the word functions as a 'restrictive' (Martin's term, for want of better), a word that attaches to a noun and forms a single (noun) phrase---かぎり, 側, あたり etc.

When modified, e.g., S + made, the resulting phrase can function as a noun, as in the example in the question; or it can act as an adverb, with or without 'ni':

ぴかぴか光るまで[に]靴を磨いた '[I] brushed [my] shoes till they were shiny'

Or it can be further adnominalized:

恐ろしいまでの執念 'an obsession that bordered on the terrifying'

頑固なまでの自立性 'self-reliance to the point of being obstinate'

'Kurai/gurai' should thus be treated as a 'restrictive', attached to the noun 'made', and meaning, appropriately as you translate, 'roughly'.