REPORTED SPEECH TENSE SHIFTS / TENSE CHANGES : PART II

REPORTED SPEECH TENSE SHIFTS / TENSE CHANGES

PART II

I hope I would not give you a headache with all the details
I will be exposing hereafter.

As I previously explained, reported speech is all about some
tense shifts. And here they are:

A/ STATEMENTS

DIRECT SPEECH.................REPORTED / INDIRECT SPEECH


1. Simple Present............... Simple Past

(am / is / are) (was / were)

(have / has) (had)

(speak / speaks) (spoke)

Rachid said,"I am happy."
Rachid said (that) he was happy.

Rachid said, “I have a small car."
Rachid said (that) he had a small car.

Rachid said, “My father has a big car.”
Rachid said (that) his father had a big car.

Rachid said, “I speak three languages.”
Rachid said (that) he spoke three languages.

2. Present Continuous ......... Past Continuous

(am / is / are speaking) ( was / were speaking)

Amira said, “Talal is playing.”
Amira said (that) Talal was playing.

Amira said, “I am looking after Talal.”
Amira said (that) she was looking after Talal.

Amira said, “We are watching TV.”
Amira said (that) they were watching TV.

3. Present Perfect ............ Past Perfect

(have / has spoken) (had spoken)

Sami said, “The teacher has already left the classroom.”
Sami said (that) the teacher had already left the classroom.

Sami said, “We have gone there twice.”
Sami said (that) they had gone there twice.

4. Present Perfect continuous.......Past Perfect Continuous

(have / has been speaking) (had been speaking)

The passengers said, “We have been waiting for long.”
The passengers said (that) they had been waiting for long.

A passenger said, “The driver has been talking on the phone.
A passenger said (that) the driver had been talking on the phone.

5. Simple Past .............. Past Perfect

(was / were) (had been)

(had) (had had)

(spoke) (had spoken)

The teacher said, “I was in the classroom.”
The teacher said (that) he had been in the classroom.

The teacher said, “The students were there, too.”
The teacher said (that) the students had been there, too.

The teacher said, “The students had problems with the
computers.”
The teacher said (that) the students had had problems
with the computers.

The teacher said, “The students wrote their compositions.”
The teacher said (that) the students had written their
compositions.

6. Past Continuous............. Past Perfect Continuous

(was / were speaking) (had been speaking)

Jalal said, “I was doing my homework.”
Jalal said (that) she had been doing his homework.

Jalal said, “We were listening to the teacher.”
Jalal said (that) they had been listening to the teacher.

7. Past Perfect............... Past Perfect (No Change)

(had been) (had been)

(had had) (had had)

(had spoken) (had spoken)

The patient said, “I had been to the doctor’s.”
The patient said (that) he had been to the doctor’s.

The patient said, “I had had an operation before.”
The patient said (that) he had had an operation before.

The patient said, “I had already taken the pills."
The patient said (that) he / she had already taken the pills.

8. Past Perfect Continuous...Past Perfect Continuous (No Change)

(had been speaking) (had been speaking)

The technician said, “I had been repairing the PC."
The technician said (that) he had been repairing the PC.


9. Simple Future............. Present Conditional

(will be) (would be)

(will have) (would have)

(will speak) (would speak)

Shama said, “I will be at home in a few minutes.”
Shama said that she would be at home in a few minutes.

Shama said, “I will have a promotion.
Shama said (that) she would have a promotion.

Shama said, "It will rain."
Shama said (that) it would rain.

10. Future Continuous ... Present Conditional Continuous

(will be speaking) (would be speaking)

Salma said, “I will be visiting my family in Rabat.”
Salma said (that) she would be visiting her family in Rabat.

11. Future Perfect ............ Past Conditional

(will have spoken) (would have spoken)

The teacher said, “You will have mastered reported speech
by the end of the lesson.”
The teacher said (that) I / we / they would have mastered
reported speech by the end of the lesson

12. Future Perfect Continuous....Past Conditional Continuous .

(will have been speaking) (would have been speaking)

The teacher said, “I will have been explaining reported
speech for three pages long by the end of the lesson.”
The teacher said that he would have been explaining reported
speech for three pages long by the end of the lesson.

13. Be Going To ..................Be Going To ( in the past)

(am / is / are going to speak) (was / were going to speak)

The teacher said, “You are going to understand better with
a little more practice.”
The teacher said (that) I was / we were / they were going to
understand better with a little more practice.

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REPORTED SPEECH / INDIRECT SPEECH : PART I

REPORTED SPEECH / INDIRECT SPEECH

PART I

DIRECT SPEECH

Direct speech is what people actually say in real life situations. Direct speech is referred to as quoted speech and involves repeating the exact words of what someone has said without removing the (“….”) the quotation marks.
For instance, when someone says: “I love my children.” can be quoted as follows:
He / she said, “I love my children.”

REPORTED SPEECH

Reported speech or indirect speech, as it is referred to sometimes, is repeating what someone said but sometime later and this of course involves some changes in the structure of the sentence or the quote in question.
For example, the previously mentioned quote “I love my children.” would be reported in the following ways:

1. He / she says (that) he / she loves his / her children.

2. He / she has said (that) he / she loves his / her children.

3. He / she said (that) he / she loved his / her children.

If you look at the three sentences, you will certainly notice the changes which the original quote underwent.

a. The quotation marks (“….”) were omitted,

b. The subject “I” changed into “he / she” because the speaker can be a man or a woman,

c. The verb “love” became in instances 1 and 2 “loves” because there must be a subject verb agreement,

d. The possessive adjective “my” changed to “his / her”. There must an agreement between the subject and the possessive,

e. In example 3, the verb “love” became “loved”. From a look at the reporting verb or the introductory verb “say” in the three examples, we can notice that in 1 it is in the present “says” , and in 2 it is in the present perfect “has said”.
This simply means that when the reporting verb is in the present or in the present perfect , the verb in the quote does not undergo any tense shift; it remains in its original tense form.

But when the reporting verb is in the past “said”, “told”, “asked”, “wanted to know” and so on, the tense shifts then must be applied to the letter except when the sentence in question expresses certain notions such as request, command, advice, promise and so forth.

To conclude, reported speech or indirect speech simply means applying the necessary tense shifts when the reporting verb is in the simple past as in example 3.

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