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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 showthe 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 someonesaid or wrote. Some of these verbs do not convey anything of the attitude of the reporter towardswhat 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; forexample, 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 originaltext (spoken or written) usually have to be altered when they are being reported. Although thereare no hard and fast rules for transforming the original text into reported speech, some broadgeneral statements can be made to explain what happens to verb tenses in such cases. It needsto be stressed that these 'rules' are only guidelines and indicate some of the characteristicchanges that native speakers might choose while relating a past incident. Below you will findsome of the more common possible verb changes, with examples of each; however, the list isnot exhaustive.

Original tense Reported tense Example

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SimplePresent

Simple Past"We enjoy fishing" - They

said they enjoyed fishing

Simple Past Past Perfect"He saw it" - She said he

had seen it

PresentPerfect

Past Perfect"She's gone" - You said she

had gone

PresentContinuous

Past Continuous"I'm leaving" - You said you

were leaving

PastContinuous

Past PerfectContinuous

"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 withreported speech. Some of these words and phrases are given in the lists below - you may beable 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 beenused 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 givenabove need to be applied. Typically, first-person and second-person expressions are converted tothird-prson; third-person expressions typically do not need to change the pronoun.

Pronouns in reported speech

I he/sheHe 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/itShe said, "He hit me" - She said he

had hit her.

we theyI said, "We are lost" - He said they

were lost.

they theyThey 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 theirHe said, "Our jobs are at risk" - He

said their jobs were at risk.

his/hers/its his/hers/itsShe 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 mightlead 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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