interpretting 人となりのわかるような事

Question

確かに彼女は、ただ一緒にいるというだけで、人となりのわかるような事を話すとも思えない。

wonder how i should approach this

[人となり(の/が)わかる]ような事

can 人となり itself わかる something?

or

[人となり]の[わかるような事]

Either way it is an awkward read

thank you

Answer 1

I think the reason you're having trouble with this is because you haven't thought of the third possible option for how to go about parsing it.

[人となり(の/が)わかる]ような事

Given a different phrase (e.g. 私が分かるような事 - something I would understand), the noun before ～が分かる is certainly doing the understanding. However, here, 人となり (meaning somewhat of a combination of "the way someone is", "one's nature", and "one's character or personality") isn't the thing doing the understanding, but the thing being understood.

This can be confusing if we were to think in English, because in conjunction with 分かる, が has the potential to mark both of these.

Marking the actor:

・これ、一般人が分かるような文章ではないと思うんですけどね。- I just don't think a lay-person would understand this writing.
・先生は私が分かるほどゆっくり話してくれた。- My teacher spoke slowly enough for me to understand.

Marking the thing being understood:

・木曜までには結果が分かるはずだ。- We should have the results by Thursday.
・貴社製品の詳細が分かるような資料などございますでしょうか？ - Do you have any documents or anything that give more details regarding your company's product(s)?

In the case of your example sentence,

(彼女の)人となりのわかるような事

would be parsed as

[(彼女の)人となり(の/が)わかる]ような事
(something that would (let me) understand her nature/character/personality/more about her)

and I would translate your whole sentence as:

I do suppose she's just here with me, I can't think she'd even talk about anything that would (let me) get to know her better.

or more naturally,

I do suppose she's just physically here with me, I have no reason to even think she'd talk about anything that would let me get to know her better.