Having trouble parsing 「おもちゃだといいなと思う」

Question

I'm having trouble understanding precisely what the functions of「だと」and 「なと」are in this sentence:「おもちゃだといいなと思う」. I did some searching here and on the web, and I think the 「と」in「と思う」is the "quote marker" function. I'm not sure why「な」interposes「いい」and 「と」, though. I'm also not sure whether that is the case for 「だと」. If so, I assume the「だ」there would be the copula. Would that mean this sentence has two quotes in it? I think I get the gist of the sentence, I just don't fully understand the grammar.

Thanks in advance. This site is really helpful.

Answer 1

The second と is what you've correctly identified as the quotative と. Xと思う means "I think X".

な is the sentence ending particle, which has a sort of wistful wishfulness meaning. いいなと思う is similar in meaning to "it'd be nice... I think."

The first と is the conditional と. To attach a noun to it, you must use a copula (i.e. だ), so it becomes おもちゃだ + と + いいなと思う, which altogether means "If it's a toy, that'd be nice, I think."