ひとまず心を落ち着けようと、飲みかけのオレンジジュースに手を伸ばす。
Please help. I came across this line and I don't really understand use of と here. How exactly does と work here?
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You may be reading too much into this; It is pretty simple.
Verb A + ようと + Verb B = "do B" so as to / in order to / for the purpose of "do A".
A is your goal / purpose. B is the method you are taking to achieve A.
ひとまず心を落ち着けようと、飲みかけのオレンジジュースに手を伸ばす。 means:
"I extend my arm to the unfinished (glass of) orange juice so as to relax myself for now."
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Obviously this is not the intent, but your wording of
Verb A + ようとmakes it sound like you need to addようとto a verb instead of it actually being the 意志形. – istrasci Nov 16 '13 at 18:13 -
@istrasci But the よう is 助動詞, no? dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/226119/m0u/%E3%82%88%E3%81%86 (We Japanese learn it as 助動詞 at school so I think most of us are not familiar with the term 意志形) – user1016 Nov 17 '13 at 8:59
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@ちょこれーと: I don't know the names of all the 品詞, so I'll trust you that it's true. But my point was, the answer used
Verb AandVerb B, and that seems to imply that they use the same form, which they obviously don't in this pattern. – istrasci Nov 17 '13 at 19:28 -
1It looks like 100% of the Google results for 意志形 are istrasci posting on this site, so that might not be the best term... At any rate,
〜(よ)うis often considered a separate form rather than 助動詞 in 日本語教育. The 日本語文法ハンドブック series calls this form the 意向形, for what it's worth. – snailboat♦ Nov 19 '13 at 2:39
思って(or possibly思いながら) after theと? – istrasci Nov 15 '13 at 22:20して. See @TsuyoshiIto's answer here. – istrasci Nov 15 '13 at 22:23