A quotative is grammatical device to mark reported speech in some languages. It can be equated with "spoken quotation marks". In the English sentence
- John said "Wow,"
there is no word indicating that we are dealing with reported speech. This is only indicated typographically. In Sinhala on the other hand, the equivalent sentence
- John Wow kiyalaa kivvaa
has an overt indication of reported speech after the reported string Wow, the quotative kiyalaa.
In Japanese, the quotative と (colloquially って ) is used to indicate reported speech in this sentence
| 石田さん | は | 「トマトが好きじゃない」 | と | 言いました |
| Ishida-san | ha | "tomato ga suki janai" | to | iimashita. |
| Mr. Ishida | top. | "tomato-nom like-neg" | quot. | say-past-polite |
| "Mr. Ishida said that he didn't like tomatoes" | ||||
See Japanese grammar for more examples of when と (to) is used.