12991
I was reading the examples from the book 日本語文型辞典 and I came across this
example sentence which I have absolutely no idea of how to parse it:

その子は、人と目が合うたびにやさしく笑いかけるような、そんな、人を疑うということを知らないような子だったと言う。

Is the first ような (笑いかける **ような** ) modifying 子, as well as the second? And what
is this そんな doing between commas?

Thanks!
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-10-01T05:21:22.313
12990
2013-10-03T09:26:04.807
2013-10-01T06:10:13.570
1392
question
grammar translation
Problems parsing this sentence (ような before comma)
It looks to me like two parallel phrases have been coordinated:

> Relative clause A = `人と目が合うたびにやさしく笑いかけるような`  
>  Relative clause B = `そんな、人を疑うということを知らないような`

Both relative clauses end with ようだ, conjugated to ような because they're
attributive modifiers. (An attributive modifier is one that comes before the
word it modifies.) In other words, they're being put together like a pair of
adjectives. I think you can parse it like this:

> その子は、（ Aな Bな ）子だったと言う。

Where both Aな and Bな modify 子.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-10-01T05:28:28.480
12991
2013-10-03T09:26:04.807
2013-10-03T09:26:04.807
12990
answer
This is almost certainly meant to be a representation of spoken Japanese. The
person is speaking and describing this kind of person. First the speaker
offers "笑いかけるような," but deciding that isn't enough, simply interjects a そんな to
be kind of like, "you know", in English. So it's like, you know, that kind of
pattern where like.. you're describing something but, like, in the middle it's
punctuated with these.. you know.. verbal cues that indicate thought about how
to expound upon the subject.

笑いかけるような is modifying 子. So is 人を疑うということを知らないような, obviously. The そんな I guess
is technically also modifying 子; essentially the three are aiming to be the
same thing, both in meaning and therefore in grammatical role. What kind of 子?
そんな子. そんな子ってどんな子？人を疑うということを知らないような子。笑いかけるような子。

そうなんだ。
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-10-03T01:47:08.523
12996
2013-10-03T01:47:08.523
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12990
answer