Explain the concept of reported speech within reported speech.

Reported Speech Questions Medium



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Explain the concept of reported speech within reported speech.

Reported speech within reported speech refers to the situation where a speaker reports someone else's words or statements, which themselves include reported speech. In other words, it is when a person reports what someone else said, and that original statement also includes reported speech.

To understand this concept, let's consider an example:

Original statement: "John said, 'I heard Mary say, "I will meet you at the park tomorrow."'"

In this example, John is reporting what he heard Mary say. However, Mary's statement also includes reported speech as she is reporting someone else's words. So, within John's reported speech, there is another layer of reported speech from Mary.

To report this statement, we need to make changes to indicate the reported speech within reported speech. The reported speech within the original statement becomes the reported speech within the reporting clause.

Reported statement: John said that he had heard Mary say that she would meet him at the park the next day.

In the reported statement, we changed the verb tense ("heard" to "had heard") to reflect that the reported speech is in the past. We also changed the pronouns ("you" to "him" and "I" to "she") to match the perspective of the reporting clause.

In summary, reported speech within reported speech occurs when a speaker reports someone else's words or statements, which themselves include reported speech. It requires making appropriate changes to verb tenses, pronouns, and other elements to accurately convey the original statement.