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Introduction
Clauses in sentences
Phrases in English grammar
Word classes
What is a word?
Morphemes
Subjects and objects
Complements
Adverbials
Verbs
Main verbs
Auxiliary verbs
Verb tenses
Present tenses
Past tenses
Future tenses
Modal auxiliary verbs
Conditional sentences
Guide to English Grammar for international learners & teachers of English
Reported speech
Many grammar books and teaching course books resort to tables of the following kind to show
the differences between what is called direct and reported speech and how the two are
connected.
Direct Speech Reported Speech
"I'm tired," John said. John said he was tired.
My mother said, "I'll be
late".
My mother said she would be
late.
He said, "I can't ride a bike." He said he couldn't ride a bike.
The most widely used verbs in reported speech that introduce what someone said are say and
tell. Choosing which one to use is a question of whether the person who was originally
addressed is important or not, since with say this person is very rarely introduced into the
conversation. The verb tell, requires the person addressed to be explicit:
They told me that he couldn't come.
The police officer told me to leave.
He told me an interesting story.
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Passive constructions
Reported speech
Nouns & noun phrases
Definite & indefinite articles
Quantifiers
Gerunds
Prepositions
Adjectives
Relative clauses
Adverbs in English
Maria told her what she did last week.
The note told us where to wait.
There are, of course, many other reporting verbs that can be used to introduce what someone
said or wrote. Some of these verbs do not convey anything of the attitude of the reporter towards
what was said, while others do. Examples of the first kind are reply, answer, explain, mention,
where the reporter is merely giving information.
Other verbs show the attitude and opinion of the speaker to the words that s/he is reporting; for
example, insist, warn, threaten, promise, complain, claim, demand and so on.
He was complaining that I hardly ever visit him anymore.
They warned me to stay away.
He insisted that I should give him a lift to the station.
The type of grammatical construction that follows reporting verbs depends on the verb itself.
There is a choice from the six following basic types:
question word + infinitive clause - He described how to get to his house.
that + a clause (that may be optional) - They all denied (that) any one of them had stolen
the money.
infinitive clause - She asked me to leave the building.
preposition + -ing clause - He insisted on seeing the evidence for himself.
question word + a clause - Could you please explain howthe accident happened?
-ing clause - A friend of mine recommended going to see this film.
You may already have noticed while reading the examples above that the words of the original
text (spoken or written) usually have to be altered when they are being reported. Although there
are no hard and fast rules for transforming the original text into reported speech, some broad
general statements can be made to explain what happens to verb tenses in such cases. It needs
to be stressed that these 'rules' are only guidelines and indicate some of the characteristic
changes that native speakers might choose while relating a past incident. Below you will find
some of the more common possible verb changes, with examples of each; however, the list is
not exhaustive.
Original tense Reported tense Example
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Simple
Present
Simple Past
"We enjoy fishing" - They
said they enjoyed fishing
Simple Past Past Perfect
"He saw it" - She said he
had seen it
Present
Perfect
Past Perfect
"She's gone" - You said she
had gone
Present
Continuous
Past Continuous
"I'm leaving" - You said you
were leaving
Past
Continuous
Past Perfect
Continuous
"He was reading" - He said
he had been reading
can could
"I can sing" - She said she
could sing
may might
"We may stay" - They said
they might stay
must had to
"I must go" - He said he
had to go
will would
"I'll buy them" - You said
you would buy them
Of course, any verb that is already in one of the Past Perfect tenses cannot change any further,
but there are several other modal auxiliaries that usually do not change either; these are: could,
might, ought to, should and would.
"It might rain tomorrow." - He said it might rain tomorrow (or today).
As you can see from the example above, the word tomorrow could be replaced by today. There
are a limited number of words and phrases connected with time and place that may need to be
changed in order for the reported message to make sense. Once more, these are not
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unbreakable rules, but a range of possibilities that need to be considered when dealing with
reported speech. Some of these words and phrases are given in the lists below - you may be
able to think of more.
Place
come go
bring take
this that
these those
here there
Time
today that day/then
tomorrow the next/following day
yesterday the day before
this week that week
next month the following month
now then
When reporting someone's words, we also need to think about the pronouns that have been
used and whether it is necessary to change them. Until this point we have been discussing how
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we report someone's speech, but this is a little misleading since we also frequently report our
own and other people's thoughts and very often the same rule-of-thumb guidelines that are given
above need to be applied. Typically, first-person and second-person expressions are converted to
third-prson; third-person expressions typically do not need to change the pronoun.
Pronouns in reported speech
I he/she
He said, "I am late" - He said he was
late.
you he/she/they
"Will you help me?" - She asked if he
would help her.
he/she/it he/she/it
She said, "He hit me" - She said he
had hit her.
we they
I said, "We are lost" - He said they
were lost.
they they
They said, "We are hungry" - They
said they were hungry.
us them
John said, "She gave us presents" -
John said she had given them
presents.
our their
He said, "Our jobs are at risk" - He
said their jobs were at risk.
his/hers/its his/hers/its
She said, "It's hers" - She said that it
was hers.
Note that in cases such as the last example above where the replacement of pronouns might
lead to ambiguity, the sentence may need further adjustment. For example:
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She said, "She took my purse" - might become: Mary said that Janet had taken her purse.
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