The purpose of using 思う with たり


I am familiar with たり when used for multiple actions. In the following
sentence:

> 人は どんな環境にも慣れるんだ  
>  と…思ったりする

(The man is thinking to himself and this is his conversation with himself)

How the use of たり affects the meaning and sense of 思ったりする when it **is not**
used for multiple actions?




You are of course right about 「～たり（～たり）する」being used in its multiple ～たり form
to list several possible actions, but it does not HAVE to list multiple
possible actions in order to be used to represent more than one action.

When only a single action is mentioned, there are two ways to look at it.
Either there is another unmentioned action that might happen, or there is more
than one possible object of the single action mentioned.

Consider:

> 週末にはROUND ONEで遊んだりする。

It's pretty clear that the person is saying that on the weekends they play at
Round One. Either they also do other things beside play on the weekend, or
else they also play elsewhere besides at Round One. Because this ～たりする form is
so open-ended, either way you want to think about it is valid, until context
provides more clues.

So going back to your example

> 人はどんな環境にも慣れるんだ  
>  と…思ったりする。

...In this case, since it seems unlikely that the speaker would do some other
action than "think", he must mean that he also thinks OTHER things, besides
the thought that he chose to mention.

therefor I would translate this as:

> People will get used to any kind of environment... I sometimes think.

The reason I choose to use the word "sometimes" is that it is the best English
choice to represent the idea that it is only ONE of the things this person
might think, thus preserving the sense of ～たりする.




You are of course right about 「～たり（～たり）する」being used in its multiple ～たり form
to list several possible actions, but it does not HAVE to list multiple
possible actions in order to be used to represent more than one action.

When only a single action is mentioned, there are two ways to look at it.
Either there is another unmentioned action that might happen, or there is more
than one possible object of the single action mentioned.

Consider:

> 週末にはROUND ONEで遊んだりする。

It's pretty clear that the person is saying that on the weekends they play at
Round One. Either they also do other things beside play on the weekend, or
else they also play elsewhere besides at Round One. Because this ～たりする form is
so open-ended, either way you want to think about it is valid, until context
provides more clues.

So going back to your example

> 人はどんな環境にも慣れるんだ  
>  と…思ったりする。

...In this case, since it seems unlikely that the speaker would do some other
action than "think", he must mean that he also thinks OTHER things, besides
the thought that he chose to mention.

therefor I would translate this as:

> People will get used to any kind of environment... I sometimes think.

The reason I choose to use the word "sometimes" is that it is the best English
choice to represent the idea that it is only ONE of the things this person
might think, thus preserving the sense of ～たりする.

