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The original sentence is:

> 今までに明らかになった被害者と思われる心臓麻痺死者の全ては、日本で情報を得る事が可能だった者と裏付けが取れました

I think **〜者と裏付け** is the abbreviation for **〜者という裏付け**. And my question is:
should I add a **だ** behind **〜者** , so that the sentence becomes:

> 今までに明らかになった被害者と思われる心臓麻痺死者の全ては、日本で情報を得る事が可能だった者 **だ** と（いう）裏付けが取れました？

I think the modified sentence is more natural. Is it? Or did the original
sentence just omit the **だ**?
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2023-05-12T02:42:34.923
99600
2023-05-12T03:04:31.113
56516
question
grammar meaning sentence
Understanding of a sentence from Death Note
You are right, と and という are interchangeable here. And it's generally safer to
keep だ before this type of と, although it's often dropped in reality. Omission
of this type of だ is sometimes called **だ抜き** , and some people frown upon it
if it happens in formal text. See the following article from NHK.

  * [「だ抜きことば」？](https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/summary/kotoba/term/140.html)

But also note that there are similar but different cases where だ _can_ be
omitted safely. See the discussion here: [Difference between だと vs と before
認める](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/55990/5010)
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2023-05-12T03:02:47.897
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2023-05-12T03:02:47.897
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99600
answer
I think both are fine. When we focus on the former:

> 今までに明らかになった被害者と思われる心臓麻痺死者の全ては、日本で情報を得る事が可能だった者と裏付けが取れました

You can see that there is a construct 全ては - だった者 which is considered neat
because this then allows the 裏付け to refer to that entire part. 全ては -
だった者だという裏付け is fine, too but it's less compact and the reference to 全ては is
arguably less clearer than the former form.

But again, both forms are fine IMO.
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2023-05-12T03:04:31.113
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answer