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I don't understand the function of と when used with と続きます

From this sentence in my textbook:

  1. 世界で一番インスタントラーメンをたくさん食べる国は中国で451.7億食、その次はインドネシアの137.0億食、日本の51.0億食、アメリカの43.2億食、ベトナムの39.1億食、韓国の33.4億食続きます。

I also found another similar sentence online:

  1. トップのリーダーは犬の行動学では「アルファ」と呼ばれ、以下「ベータ」「ガンマ」続きます。

When referring to these resources, I'm not sure under which meaning と takes:

デジタル大辞泉

How is と used in these sentences?

If I had to guess, maybe it's used as a defining/quoting particle?

(文や句をそのまま受けて)動作・作用・状態の内容を表す。引用の「と」。「正しい―いう結論に達する」

If so, I'm not sure how it fits in to the definition above.

What function does と take in these sentences?

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  • 2
    Related: japanese.stackexchange.com/q/63297/5010
    – naruto
    May 11, 2019 at 4:57
  • @naruto Reading the answer to the post you linked, I'm leaning towards the 2. definition for sentence 1. But according to this post:japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/31099/… と cannot be used with concrete numbers. My sentence has concrete numbers, so I feel like it's not appropriate there. It cannot take the 1. definition because 続く is a verb and not an adjective. I also feel like it doesn't make sense with 3. because it's not a negative sentence.
    – shade549
    May 11, 2019 at 7:12
  • Right, none of them are dupe of this, although the first one is very close to this one. I just wanted to say the quotative-と has many usages.
    – naruto
    May 11, 2019 at 12:08

1 Answer 1

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This と before 続く is a "friend" of quotative-と. If I have to choose one, it corresponds to this definition of デジタル大辞泉.

  1. (文や句をそのまま受けて)動作・作用・状態の内容を表す。引用の「と」。

It says と can broadly mark "the content of an action/effect/state". The well-known quotative-と is actually a subset of this type of と. I don't know how this is usually taught to Japanese learners, but in my own words, this type of と is a "content descriptor" or "concrete-description-to".

Here are some examples of such atypical, "quotative-like" と:

  • ピアノでドレミファソ弾いた。
  • ゲームパッドで「上、下、左、右、B、A」押してください。
  • このドレスは19,800円かなり安い。(see this question, too)
  • 彼は縞模様のシャツにリュックサック典型的なオタクの格好だ。
  • 1時間、2時間待ったが誰も来なかった。
  • 今朝はパン、オムレツ、サラダ、牛乳たくさん食べた。
  • 最近はブルー、ピンク、ゴールド様々な色のiPhoneが売られている。
  • 彼は3月、5月、9月中国に旅行した。

As you can see, と appears when you describe a verb/adjective using either a concrete number or a concrete sequence/list of items. It's somewhat akin to English "like" or "namely". You may find this と more or less similar to と used to form adverbs from onomatopoeias and some descriptive nouns (e.g, キラキラと, 堂々と, ...).

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  • Thanks for the examples! I couldn't find any resources explaining this と in detail, its not taught to Japanese learners as far as I know. Just to clarify, does Xと続くtranslate to "X and so on" or "followed by X"? と describes the contents of 続く correct? Are と and をsometimes interchangeable e.g. チキンと食べた/チキンを食べた
    – shade549
    May 12, 2019 at 0:29
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    @shade549 "X, Y, Zと続く" is like "it (=the list) continues like X, Y, Z." As you can see, this と is often used with a list that concretely describes the details of an action/state. チキンと食べた in isolation sounds fairly weird to me.
    – naruto
    May 12, 2019 at 5:51

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