I know this usages of this particle.

と=and, with
Verb+と=conditional
となる=change in state
ようとする=Try to do something
と=As a quote or reported speech

Sometimes though I can't understand why it is used and what it means.

For example.

俺は押し倒されていて、もしこのまま腕を引きぬけたとしても、次の瞬間には自由になった黒犬の牙がこっちの首を噛み砕く――――

I kinda think it means something like

I am lying on the ground and even if i Manage to pull my arm out, the next moment the dog who freed itself will use is fangs to bite my neck off.

Still I do not understand why Past tense+ と is used here.
Could someone explain this grammar rule?

としても as a phrase means something like "even if" or "in this case".

ぬけた isn't really "past tense"; the た in Japanese is a marker of completion -- either a completed action, or a state that is "actualized" or "realized". Sometimes that results in a past tense, but here it just expresses the (hypothetical) completed action of pulling his arm out. The 自由になった黒犬 is the same thing; the "become free" is in the (hypothetical) future but it represents the actual condition of the dog being free.

Thank you.
And in a sentence like this what does と mean?

自分がマイノリティだと気付いた

splikie Wrote:And in a sentence like this what does と mean?

自分がマイノリティだと気付いた

I think of と there as basically just being short for ということ, so if you were to expand the sentence, it would be 自分がマイノリティだということに気付いた. But someone like yudantaiteki can probably give a better answer.

Morellet Wrote:

splikie Wrote:And in a sentence like this what does と mean?

自分がマイノリティだと気付いた

I think of と there as basically just being short for ということ, so if you were to expand the sentence, it would be 自分がマイノリティだということに気付いた. But someone like yudantaiteki can probably give a better answer.

You know how English has "that" for a subordinate clause marker (i.e. I realized that I forgot my lunch.)? With certain verbs, that's exactly what that と is. Hence, the と here shows that what the speaker realized is 自分がマイノリティ. Simply put then, "I realized that I'm a minority," or "I realized that I was a minority" depending on the context.

Raulsen Wrote:

Morellet Wrote:

splikie Wrote:And in a sentence like this what does と mean?

自分がマイノリティだと気付いた

I think of と there as basically just being short for ということ, so if you were to expand the sentence, it would be 自分がマイノリティだということに気付いた. But someone like yudantaiteki can probably give a better answer.

You know how English has "that" for a subordinate clause marker (i.e. I realized that I forgot my lunch.)? With certain verbs, that's exactly what that と is. Hence, the と here shows that what the speaker realized is 自分がマイノリティ. Simply put then, "I realized that I'm a minority," or "I realized that I was a minority" depending on the context.

But that use of と is basically just as a quotation marker, i.e. you use it before a verb of speaking (e.g. 言う) or thinking (e.g. 思う). Which makes sense here and is what I would have first thought, since "realizing" (i.e., 気付く) is a kind of thinking. But I'm used to 気付く usually taking に (and less frequently を) to mark what has been realized (i.e., its direct object), so that's why I thought that here と would essentially be used to nominalize 自分がマイノリティだ so that that whole phrase can be marked as the realization.

Also, this is from the 明鏡国語辞典 entry on 気付く:
【語法】｢～に気づく｣が一般的だが､｢～を気づく｣の形(他動詞)でも使う｡｢私の振り返ったのを─･かないらしく千代子が言った〈川端康成〉｣

Edit: Basically, I myself would've normally just thought of this と as being more or less the same as と before 思う (or even 言う), so "that"/the quotation marker. But the OP gets that use of と and is still confused by its use here. So yeah, I guess I'm not really too clear myself on ～に気付く vs. ～と気付く. XD