In linguistics, speech or indirect discourse is a grammatical mechanism for reporting the content of another utterance without directly quoting it.
In fiction, the "utterance" might amount to an unvoiced thought that passes through a stream of consciousness, as reported by an omniscient narrator.
In indirect speech, grammatical categories in the embedded clause often differ from those in the utterance it reports.
For instance Latin indirect speech uses the infinitive for statements and the subjunctive for questions.
Also, even when referring to a known completed speech act, the reporter may deviate freely from the words that were actually used, provided the meaning is retained.
An indirect statement or question can replace the direct object of a verb that is related to thought or communication.
An accurate reproduction of the full temporal sense of direct speech is thus often impossible:[10] As is shown from the first example, even a coreferent subject must be expressed in the accusative if its clause is put into the infinitive.
[11] That construction is called, in generative linguistics, subject-to-subject raising: the noun phrase (in the accusative) is detached from the infinitive and is raised as the nominative subject of the matrix passive verb: If an imperfect or a pluperfect was initially used in direct speech, the perfect infinitive is normally used instead, as it the only one capable of denoting a state of affairs earlier than the one denoted by the matrix verb that introduces the indirect speech.
)[13] The future perfect indicative, a tense denoting a state of affairs completed in the future and so later than another state of affairs in the future, becomes, according to at least some grammarians,[13] the circumlocution fore ut + perfect of pluperfect subjunctive, in accordance to the sequence of tenses at hand, a sort of substantive consecutive clause serving as subject of the infinitive fore.
Some rhetoric questions change the verb to the accusative, followed by the infinitive, as if it were a real declarative statement in direct speech [17]).
It is normally appropriate to retain the word that introduces the question, but a relative pronoun or adverb is occasionally used instead of one that is initially interrogative.
However, the use of present subjunctive after a primary tense and imperfect subjunctive after a secondary tense is also often attested, especially if the future reference is obvious from the context and for a passive verb (passives lack the periphrastic conjugation -urus sim).
The idea of possibility is often expressed by periphrases: by -urus sim, essem, fuerim, fuissem and by a subjunctive tense of possum + present infinitive:[20] A dependent clause in the indicative is put into the subjunctive if it is changed to indirect speech.
Almost all the rules stated above hold for indirect questions:[21] The simple present particular conditional becomes the present indicative in the protasis and the apodosis: The unreal present conditional (an imperfect subjunctive in the protasis and the apodosis; an unreal imperfect subjunctive remains unchanged in the protasis; an unreal imperfect subjunctive becomes the infinitive -urum fuisse in the apodosis): The vivid future conditional (a future perfect indicative in a protasis, a direct question with a future indicative in an apodosis; a protasis is changed to a perfect or pluperfect subjunctive, according to the rules of the sequence of tenses; an apodosis similarly is changed to an indirect question with the periphrastic -usus sim/essem): In Russian and many other Slavic languages, indirect speech uses the same verb tense as the equivalent sentence in direct speech: Persian is similar to Slavic languages and indirect speech uses the same verb forms as those of direct speech: German indirect speech consists formally of dependent clauses depending on a verb of saying, holding, thinking or the like, but they may sometimes be elliptically left out and simply implied.
Shorter statements of indirect speech may be presented in the indicative if they are not doubted; however, it would be colloquial to do so but to leave the "dass" out: Notes on the subjunctive: