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In my book I have this sentence:

生徒が学校へ行こうと思って野を歩いていると、一ぴきのきつねが遠くにいるのをみた。

I understand the sentence, "The student, who is walking in the field while he wants to go to school, saw a fox far away".

But what's the purpose of "と" here?

neo2500
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    Are you sure your textbook says `生徒が学校へ行こうと思って野を歩いていると、一ぴきのきつねが遠くにいるのをみた`, not 「生徒が学校へ行こうと思って野を歩いていると、一匹のきつねが遠くにいるの**が見えた** 」 or 「～～、一匹のきつねが遠くに**見えた** 」? – Chocolate Jul 04 '17 at 22:49
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    See also: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/393/9831・https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/24463/9831・https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/17416/9831 – Chocolate Jul 04 '17 at 23:03

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と in this case implies that something unexpected is following. "The student was walking in the field to go to school, when he saw a fox far away." Or we can emphasize like that to see the nuance: "Just when the student thought of going to school and was walking in the field, he saw a fox far away."

Haldea
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