Indirect speech, also called indirect discourse, is a means of expressing the content of statements, questions or other utterances, without quoting them explicitly as is done in direct speech. For example, He said "I'm coming" is direct speech, whereas He said he was coming is indirect speech. Indirect speech should not be confused with indirect speech acts.
In terms of grammar, indirect speech often makes use of certain syntactic structures such as content clauses ("that" clauses, such as (that) he was coming), and sometimes infinitive phrases. References to questions in indirect speech frequently take the form of interrogative content clauses, also called indirect questions (such as whether he was coming).In indirect speech certain grammatical categories are changed relative to the words of the original sentence.
For example, person may change as a result of a change of speaker or listener (as I changes to he in the example above). In some languages, including English, the tense of verbs is often changed – this is often called sequence of tenses.
When written, indirect speech is not normally enclosed in quotation marks or any similar typographical devices for indicating that a direct quotation is being made. However such devices are sometimes used to indicate that the indirect speech is a faithful quotation of someone's words (with additional devices such as square brackets and ellipses to indicate deviations or omissions from those words), as in He informed us that "after dinner [he] would like to make an announcement".
Examples:
·
It is raining hard.
ü
She says that it is raining hard. (no change)
ü
She said that it was raining hard. (change of
tense when the main verb is past tense)
·
I have painted the ceiling blue.
ü
He said that he had painted the ceiling blue.
(change of person and tense)
·
I will come to your party tomorrow.
ü
I said that I would come to his party the next
day/the following day. (change of tense, person and time expression)
·
How do people manage to live in this city?
ü
I asked him how people managed to live in that
city. (change of tense and question syntax, and of demonstrative)
·
Please leave the room.
ü
I asked them to leave the room. (use of
infinitive phrase)
The tense changes illustrated above (also called
backshifting), which occur because the main verb ("said",
"asked") is in the past tense, are not obligatory when the situation
described is still valid:
Time Expressions
today that day
now then
yesterday the day before
… days ago … days before
last week the week before
next year the following year
tomorrow the next day / the following day
Place
here there
here there
Demonstratives
this that
these those
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Iran backed out of
nuclear deal - John Kerry
US Secretary of State John Kerry has said Iran backed out
of a deal on its nuclear programme during talks with world powers in Geneva on
Saturday.
Amid reports that France's reservations scuppered an
agreement, Mr Kerry told reporters in Abu Dhabi: "The French signed off on
it; we signed off on it."
Iran had been unable to accept the deal "at that
particular moment", he added.
Mr Kerry said he hoped in the next few months they could
"find an agreement that meets everyone's standards".
Representatives from Iran and the so-called P5+1 - the US,
UK, France, Russia and China plus Germany - will meet again on 20 November...
