Indirect Speech

Verbs often undergo tense changes in indirect speech. This commonly occurs in content clauses (typically that-clauses and indirect questions, when governed by a predicate of saying (thinking, knowing, etc.) which is in the past tense or conditional mood.

In this situation the following tense and aspect changes occur relative to the original words.

Changes to past:

• "I like apples." → He said that he liked apples.
• "We are riding." → They claimed that they were riding.
• "You have sinned." → I was told that I had sinned.

Changes to past perfect (and sometimes past progressive to past perfect progressive):

• "They finished all the wine earlier." → He thought they had finished all the wine earlier.

This change does not normally apply, however, when the past tense is used to denote an unreal rather than a past circumstance (e.g., expressions of wish, conditional sentences and dependent clauses):

• "I would do anything you asked." → He said he would do anything she asked.

Changes to conditional, also referred to as future-in-the-past (i.e. will/shall changes to would/should):

• "The match will end in a draw." → He predicted that the match would end in a draw.

The modals can and may change to their preterite forms could and might :

• "We may attend." → She told us that they might attend.

Verb forms not covered by any of the above rules (verbs already in the past perfect, or formed with would or other modals not having a preterite equivalent) do not change. Note that application of the above rules is not compulsory; sometimes the original verb tense is retained, particularly when the statement (with the original tense) remains equally valid at the moment of reporting:

• "The earth orbits the sun." → Copernicus stated that the earth orbits the sun.

Note also that the above tense changes do not apply when the verb of saying (etc.) is not past or conditional in form; in particular there are no such changes when that verb is in the present perfect: He has said that he likes apples.