Page 285 - Practical English Usage 3ed - Michael Swan, Oxford

- DIRECT: INDIRECT:
- DIRECT: INDIRECT:
Who's the best player here?
She asked me who was the best player. She asked me who the best player was. What's the matter?
I asked what was the matter.
I asked what the matter was.
Which is my seat?
- DIRECT:
INDIRECT: She wondered which was her seat.
indirect speech (5): advanced points 278
6 negative questions
Negative questions often express emotions such as surprise or enthusiasm (see 368), and these are usually reported in special ways.
Don't the children like ice-cream?
She was surprised that the children didn't like ice-cream. (NOT S.'1e titSleeti {,-{the ehiltll'lffl tlitlrt't like ice cream.)
Isn't she lovely!
1 remarked how lovely she was. (NOT {titSIeeti ifahe ftltitSrI't
Wifely.)
7 word order with what. who and which
Questions beginning who/what/which + be can ask for a subject or a complement. Compare:
Who is the best player here? (This asks for a subject: a possible answer is John is the best player here.)
What is the time? (This asks for a complement: a possible answer is The time is 4.30, NOT 4.36 i3 the time.)
When we report the first kind of question (where who/what/which + be asks for a subject), two word orders are possible.
- D I R E C T : INDIRECT:
- DIRECT: INDIRECT:
She wondered which her seat was.
This does not happen when who/what/which asks for a complement.
DIRECT: What's the time?
INDIRECT: She asked what the time was. (NOT USUALLY She asked what
was the time.)
8 She's written I don't know how many books
Complicated structures can be produced in infonna! speech when reporting expressions are put into sentences with question-word clauses or relatives.
She's written I don't know how many books.
He's gone I don't know where.
This is the man who Ann said would teU us about the church.
For more about relative structures of this kind, see 498.15.
For more about embedding (clauses inside clauses) in general, see 515.
9 indirect speech without reporting verbs
In newspaper, radio and TV reports, reports of parliamentary debates, records of conferences, minutes of meetings etc, the indirect speech construction is often used with very few reporting verbs. The use of tenses is enough to make
it clear that a text is a report.
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