What is this な between a noun and the particle の？


What is the role of the な in bold in this sentence? Is it a nominalized だ?

考えれば考える程彼女がどういう女 **な** のか分からなくなってきます。




Let's start with this part of the sentence:

> 彼女がどういう女だ

We'd like to add のだ, which includes the nominalizer の. When we do this, だ
changes to な, as you suggest:

> 〜 **だ** ＋のだ ＝ 〜 **な** のだ

Here's what our sentence looks like so far:

> 彼女がどういう女 **なのだ**

Since this has a question word, it's a question clause even without か. But we
can add か anyway, and in this case it's required because of the following
verb:

> 彼女がどういう女なの **だか** ・・・

If this were a complete sentence, we'd want to delete だ before か:

> 彼女がどういう女なの **か** ← **か** , not **だか**

But since the question clause is used as a complement for the following verb,
deleting だ is optional:

> 考えれば考える程 [ 彼女がどういう女 **なのだか** ] 分からなくなってきます。  
>  考えれば考える程 [ 彼女がどういう女 **なのか** ] 分からなくなってきます。

The last one is your sentence, so hopefully you can see how it's put together
now.




Let's start with this part of the sentence:

> 彼女がどういう女だ

We'd like to add のだ, which includes the nominalizer の. When we do this, だ
changes to な, as you suggest:

> 〜 **だ** ＋のだ ＝ 〜 **な** のだ

Here's what our sentence looks like so far:

> 彼女がどういう女 **なのだ**

Since this has a question word, it's a question clause even without か. But we
can add か anyway, and in this case it's required because of the following
verb:

> 彼女がどういう女なの **だか** ・・・

If this were a complete sentence, we'd want to delete だ before か:

> 彼女がどういう女なの **か** ← **か** , not **だか**

But since the question clause is used as a complement for the following verb,
deleting だ is optional:

> 考えれば考える程 [ 彼女がどういう女 **なのだか** ] 分からなくなってきます。  
>  考えれば考える程 [ 彼女がどういう女 **なのか** ] 分からなくなってきます。

The last one is your sentence, so hopefully you can see how it's put together
now.

