Re: Is or Was Part II

[English Maiden]

Thanks for your clear explanation, sir. By the way, I have read on a website that backshifting in reported speech and when reporting one's own thoughts is ALWAYS CORRECT though NOT REQUIRED. I have proven this to be true and very common among native speakers and writers of English, that's why sentences like "I didn't think they sold wild animals here," "I didn't know you liked that girl," "He told me his name was Bill," and "I told my friends that I was into Korean movies" are very common, even if the conditions or situations described continue to exist in the present. Now, my question is, does it always go that in the case of complex sentences if the main verb in the main clause is in the past tense, the verb or verbs in the dependent clause should also be in the past tense? If I follow this rule, I will always be correct, won't I?

[Joe Carillo]

The general rule for reported speech is this: When the reporting verb is in the past tense, the operative verb of the reported utterance backshifts or takes one step back from the present into the past. For instance, assume that your friend whose name is Annie told you this yesterday: “I am unhappy with my work.” Today, when you report that remark to me, you need to change the verb in the utterance from simple present to the simple past in this backshifted form: “Yesterday, Annie said she was unhappy with her work.” Always keep in mind that reported speech is actually an ellipted or streamlined form of a complex sentence with the relative pronoun “that” removed. In this case, the unellipted complex sentence is “Yesterday, Annie said that she was unhappy with her work.”

Now, regarding this question of yours: If the main verb in the main clause is in the past tense, should the verb in the dependent clause be also in the past tense? The answer is no; the verb in the dependent clause will not be always be in the past tense. This will only be true when the verb in the actual utterance is in the present tense. In actual speech, the verb in the speaker’s utterance can be in any of the various tenses, so when they backshift in reported speech, they won’t all backshift to the past tense. In general, with some notable exceptions, the backshifting will be one tense back from the tense of the verb in the utterance (from the past tense to the past perfect, for instance).

Click this link to “Going back to the basic forms of reported speech” for my detailed explanation of these transformations in tense. For a fuller understanding of the rules and quirks of reported speech, check out also these previous postings of mine on the subject: “The proper way to construct sentences for reported speech” and “Reported speech needs advanced grammar skills and a quick mind.”