When using ことだから it says that the meaning "Shows a typical trait or characteristic of A". In the how to use section is says "Noun (person)". Since many user example sentences show non-people nouns (such as Japan, the cold, etc), I just want someone to tell me whether the noun has to refer to a person or not.
I haven't (yet) been able to find any official sources that refer to usages outside of people; since the user sentences are unverified, there is no guarantee that the usage there is correct.
I'm studying for N2 and this grammar is new to me, so please take this with a grain of salt.
JGram states that it's [i]usually [/i]used with people: http://dev.jgram.org/pages/viewOne.php?tagE=kotodakara
But in my book [i]Bunpou Speed Master (J Research publishing)[/i], there's an example sentence: 毎日のことだから、食器洗いは簡単に済ませたいですね。(It's something I have to do everyday, so I'd like to find a way to get the dishes done easily.)
This isn't directly about a person, but a daily task.
Oh, and ALC has a lot of good examples. :D http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E3%81%AE%E3%81%93%E3%81%A8%E3%81%A0%E3%81%8B%E3%82%89&ref=sa
It seems to me that most of the user sentences (including mine) now fall under the second usage of this pattern - is there any way to change what usage a sentence falls under without deleting and re-writing it?
I can do a mass move of them, but I unfortunately don't have time to read through all of them - I'd need the id numbers of the ones to be moved (you can see them by right clicking on the comments button, then hitting "inspect element" on Chrome.
I think the first usage also works with な-adjectives, e.g. 必要なことだからだ。 (= because it's necessary.) and nouns require の after them, e.g.: 推測のことだから。。。 (= because it's a guess...)
Also, both of its current example sentences seem to fit better with the second usage.
