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I have a sentence that I came across in a manga I am reading. The male speaker is speaking to five girls (one of whom he met 5 years ago but doesn't know which one) and says, この中で昔俺に会ったことがあるよって人ー?

I understand that manga doesn't have the best punctuation but I believe that the complete logical clause before よって may be a clause describing the 人 and since this is casual speech there is no need for the copula or か to be used for question form. I just can't seem to figure out what the よって is doing. I would appreciate any help on this one. Jisho says that よって means "therefore; consequently; accordingly; for that reason."

Could these just be two separate sentences where the second sentence is just "Therefore, that person is?" With the unsaid subject being the person he met before (introduced in the previous clause).

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    Hint: It's not the one-word よって.
    – istrasci
    Commented Sep 17, 2019 at 22:28
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    合った should be 会った.
    – kimi Tanaka
    Commented Sep 17, 2019 at 22:35
  • @istrasci jeez. It's よ sentence ender with って quotation particle (と) isn't it? Even if that is so, I'm a bit confused how it is working. Could って be used as a casual は here? That would make the sentence that came before, the new information about one of them meeting the speaker, the topic and implied subject. Then he would be asking who that person is. Correct?
    – UCProgrammer
    Commented Sep 17, 2019 at 22:44

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You have parsed it wrong.

この中で「昔俺に会ったことがあるよ」って人ー?
(Is there) anyone who has met me long ago?

So 昔俺に会ったことがあるよ is an (indirect) quote, and よ is a sentence-end particle within the quote. This って is a very casual variant of という used like this:

  • 地球が丸いって事実 (= 地球が丸いという事実)
  • 美女が野獣に恋をするって話 (= 美女が野獣に恋をするという話)
  • ペンギンが飛べないってのは本当？ (= ペンギンが飛べないというのは本当？)
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  • Indirect quote meaning that someone else said something but the exact words aren't being used? I'm looking at guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/define#Using_or_for and the section "Using 「って」 or 「て」 for 「という」" seems to fit what is going on here. Is that correct? I don't believe someone else needs to have said it nor did anyone say it in this story until this moment. To me, this って just bundles up a relative clause much like の and こと do. And looking at the link I sent you, というの gets turned into って in a casual sense.
    – UCProgrammer
    Commented Sep 18, 2019 at 1:38
  • @UCProgrammer I added some examples where という and って are interchangeable (except for the large difference in casualness). By indirect quote, yes, I mean that.
    – naruto
    Commented Sep 18, 2019 at 2:42
  • Hmmm, the examples make sense since they would all be things that could have been said by someone else at some point. In my example, nobody else has said anything about the meeting a long time ago. The speaker had mentioned it to one of the 5 girls prior, but not to the other 4 and he's mainly speaking to them here. I don't know why he would use an indirect quote on a newly introduced topic, his own experience of having met one of them long ago. Can indirect quote's in Japanese cover experiences too? If so, then I can see that being a possible reason since one of the girls must have met him
    – UCProgrammer
    Commented Sep 18, 2019 at 13:22
  • @UCProgrammer Oh you have to stop associating this type of いう with "say". See: japanese.stackexchange.com/a/52003/5010
    – naruto
    Commented Sep 18, 2019 at 17:19
  • I'm not trying to associate いう with "say." I'm falling back to "say" because you said this is an indirect quote. I googled the meaning of an indirect quote (searched "indirect quote meaning") and this is it, "An indirect quotation is when the meaning but not the exact words of something someone spoke is referred to." So this is what's giving me the confusion. If this is an indirect quote and this definition is correct, than that would mean that at some point "the experience of having met a long time ago" would have been spoke about.
    – UCProgrammer
    Commented Sep 18, 2019 at 17:41

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