VIII. INDIRECT DISCOURSE

VIII. INDIRECT DISCOURSE

+430.+ A quotation may be +direct+ or +indirect+.

A +direct quotation+ repeats a speech or thought in its original form.

I replied: “I am sorry to hear it.”

“Henceforth,” he explained, “I shall call on Tuesdays.”

“You must see California,” she insisted.

“Elizabeth no longer lives here,” he said.

“I know nothing about it,” was the witness’s reply.

“Where,” thought I, “are the crew?”[47]

An +indirect quotation+ repeats a speech or thought in substance, but usually with some change in its form.

An indirect quotation, when a statement, is a subordinate clause dependent on some word of _saying_ or _thinking_, and introduced by the conjunction _that_.

I replied _that I was sorry to hear it_. [Direct: I am sorry.]

He explained _that henceforth he should call on Tuesdays_.

She insisted _that I must see California_.

+A direct quotation+ begins with a +capital letter+, unless it is a fragment of a sentence. It is enclosed in +quotation marks+.

+An indirect quotation+ begins with a +small letter+. It usually has no quotation marks.

+431.+ +A substantive clause introduced by _that_ may be used with verbs and other expressions of _telling_, _thinking_, _knowing_, and _perceiving_, to report the words or thought of a person in substance, but usually with some change of form.+

+Such clauses are said to be in the indirect discourse.+

For distinction, a remark or a thought in its original form (as in a direct quotation) is said to be in the +direct discourse+.

+432.+ Statements in _indirect discourse_, being substantive clauses, may be used in various noun constructions: (1) as +object+ of some verb of _telling_, _thinking_, or the like, (2) as +subject+, (3) as +predicate nominative+, (4) as +appositive+.

He said _that the box was empty_. [Object.]

_That the box was empty_ was all he could say. [Subject.]

My remark was _that the bill is a menace_. [Predicate nominative.]

Your remark, _that the bill is a menace_, has aroused vigorous protest. [Apposition.]

+433.+ The conjunction _that_ is often omitted.

Jack said [_that_] he was sorry.

I hope [_that_] you can come.

I know he is too busy a man to have leisure for me.--COWPER.

+434.+ In indirect discourse, after the past or the pluperfect tense, the present tense of the direct discourse becomes past, and the perfect becomes pluperfect.

1. DIRECT: I _am_ tired. INDIRECT: John {said | had said} that he _was_ tired.

2. DIRECT: I _have won_. INDIRECT: John {said | had said} that he _had won_.

But a general or universal truth always remains in the present tense.

DIRECT: Air _is_ a gas. INDIRECT: I told him that air _is_ a gas. INDIRECT: I had told him a hundred times that air _is_ a gas.

+435.+ The clause with _that_ in indirect discourse is sometimes replaced by an infinitive clause (§ 325).

The jury declared _him to be innocent_. [Compare: The jury declared _that he was innocent_.]

Morton admitted _them to be counterfeit_. [Compare: Morton admitted _that they were counterfeit_.]

In these sentences, _him_ and _them_ are, of course, the subjects of the infinitives, not the objects of _declared_ and _admitted_.

+436.+ When the verb of _telling_ or _thinking_ is in the +passive voice+, three constructions occur:--