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At first, I thought the answer was simply that you can only use だそうです (because
that's all I have ever seen), but today I read the entry for そう in the
_Handbook of Japanese Grammar_ (1940s) by Henderson
([PDF](https://ia800402.us.archive.org/6/items/HandbookOfJapaneseGrammarHaroldG.HendersonUniversityPress/HandbookOfJapaneseGrammar.pdf)
via arxiv.org) and was surprised to see that the author listed both きれい **な**
そうです and きれい **だ** そうです as ways of saying "They say (she) is beautiful." He
went on to say that it would be unusual to hear such a soft sentence as
"きれいなそうな" in Tokyo, at least used by men. He didn't elaborate much, however.
This same book said that the word is often written as さう (I believe this is
obsolete today) and mentioned that it is an abbreviation of さよう.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WW5gx.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WW5gx.png)

Is "きれいなそうです" correct, or perhaps an outdated usage of the form, or is the
author mistaken? Could anyone shed some light on this?
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question
grammar copula
Can one say なそうです instead of だそうです when expressing hearsay?
As a native speaker, 綺麗なそうです, 静かなそうです, 下手なそうです etc. doesn't sound wrong and
does sound softer. E.g. one could accuse some third party by saying 簡単 **だそう**
です, implying the third party is wrong. 簡単 **なそう** です is harder to say in an
accusational way IMO.

As to how often it's used, I'd say much less than だそうです. Whether it used to be
more common before I don't know but `〜なそうな` is used as a cliche when the
language is intentionally being made archaic, like when old fairy tales are
told (e.g. 日本昔話). I'm also not sure if the gender is a factor.
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answer