96047
In かちかち山, at least the version I am looking at, one of the opening lines is:

> 気のいい、じいさまとばあさまが、すんでおりました **そうな** 。

I can't figure out how to explain the bolded part. そう would either mean "seems
like" or hearsay. Based on the conjugation of the preceding verb I conclude
that we're dealing with hearsay here, which would fit the tone of a folk tale.
But I'd then expect そうだ or そうです.

The only possible explanation I can come up with is that the だ is omitted, and
then we're left with な as a sentence ending particle.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-29T20:51:57.747
96045
2022-08-30T00:28:14.733
48332
question
sentence-final-particles
What grammatical concepts are behind そうな at the end of a sentence?
そうな is the pre-noun form (連体形) of そうだ. It is an instance of
[連体形終止](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E4%B8%96%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E#%E9%80%A3%E4%BD%93%E5%BD%A2%E7%B5%82%E6%AD%A2),
which (according to the linked Wikipedia entry) became common in 14-16C.

Using そうな at the end should be an (pseudo) archaism that is commonly seen in
starting folklores.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-30T00:28:14.733
96047
2022-08-30T00:28:14.733
45489
96045
answer