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So, I have this sentence:

"つまりパスポートもビザもない、と"

The first part is pointing out that someone doesn't have a passport or visa (since they threw their bag at someone earlier). But what is that 「と」 doing there by itself?

I went back and reviewed my explanations of 「と」 as a particle, and my best guess is that it's meant to be quotative, referring to what the other person said about throwing their bag. This seems reasonable in conjunction with the 「つまり」, which I usually see defined/translated as "in other words," but I really don't know. I have a bad habit of fudging things in favor of sense-making. >.>

Can anyone tell me if my assessment is at all right, and what semantic purpose is served by keeping just the 「と」 instead of making a full statement?

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my best guess is that it's meant to be quotative

Yep.

You could follow that と with 彼女 が 言いました or the something like と いう 状態 です

つまりパスポートもビザもない、という状態です

つまりパスポートもビザもない、と彼女が言いました

So you might call it an abbreviated quotative use.

Can anyone tell me ... what semantic purpose is served by keeping just the 「と」 instead of making a full statement?

Brevity. Japanese tends to favor conciseness and ambiguity over explicitness.

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  • Not sure about abbreviating という状態です with just と. Although there is no hard rule about what to ellipse, I guess someone may do it but... I somehow doubt anyone would. Mostly because to abbreviate 何もない、という状態です, 何もない is enough (or, possibly, 何もない、という状態, but it's longer), and the full meaning is still retained. If one doesn't want to spell out という状態です, he can leave it out and keep the meaning. With things like と思う or と言った for example, removing them altogether removes their meaning and alters the sentence. と is required because what's abbreviated alters the meaning of the whole.
    – desseim
    Aug 22, 2019 at 0:42

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