Introducing an indirect quotation with と


I find it difficult to translate Japanese indirect quotations into my own
language partly because of different grammatical patterns and verb conjugation
altogether; for example, what about this sentence:

> (お見舞いかたがた) 久しぶりに故郷の話でもしてこよう **と** 思い立った.  
>  ???? 'It sprang to my mind/I decided to speak about my hometown after such
> a long time'

I have tons of phrases with such construction. How do you guys go about
figuring out the meaning?




The most literal translation that I can surmise is

> "After such a long time,'I will speak about my hometown' is what occurred to
> me."

So the と translates to "is what", "is the thing that" or just "that" in almost
all situations. It can be loosely considered a subordinating conjunction that
connects an independent clause to a dependent clause functioning as a noun.
This is the same function that the word "that" has in English. If you
absolutely must compare it to English grammar, it is best thought of as the
subordinating conjuction "that". But strictly speaking, there is a crucial
difference that makes it best described as a particle/postposition that
follows a quotation. As there are no postpositions in English, there is no
direct English equivalent.

The terms "direct" and "indirect" quotations don't really hold the same
syntactical distinction in Japanese that they do in English. In English, a
direct quotation has two criteria:

  1. It is (or is intended to be by the speaker) someone's exact words.
  2. It is delimited by quotation marks.
  3. It does not use a subordinating conjunction.

Look at the following sentences:

> 先生は「漢字を練習しなさい」と言った。  
> The teacher said "study kanji".
>
> 先生は漢字を練習しなさいと言った。  
> The teacher said to study kanji.("Study kanji" is what the teacher said.)

The first sentence is a direct quotation. In Japanese, it is delimited by
quotation marks, but still has a と functioning as a subordinating conjunction.
The conjunction is omitted in English because it is not considered a clause--
just a long predicate consisting of several words. In Japanese the と is always
there, whether the quotation is direct or indirect.

So summary: the と **resembles** "that" in English, but is actually a
postposition following a quotation, with no English equivalent.

