A recent question about the usage of quoted speech contained this interesting sample sentence:
ハイリアの民は、ふしぎな力を あやつることが、できたと言います。
Often when I read this kind of sentence, I wonder if ハイリアの民
is part of the quoted sentence, or the actor doing the quoting.
That is, can this sentence only be read as "They say that the people of Hylia were able to harness a mysterious power" (which seems to be the only reading considered in the aforementioned discussion), or is "The people of Hylia say that they (not necessarily the Hylians) were able to harness a mysterious power" also a valid reading?
If only the first reading is valid, is this possibly due to the usage of the particle は
versus が
, which would mark the speaker?