Reported speech in novel? 1. In a novel, is the narrative part reported speech while the dialogue part direct speech? 2. If not, where can we find reported speech in a novel? 3. Where can we find dire

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Chino Alpha

Reported speech in novel? 1. In a novel, is the narrative part reported speech while the dialogue part direct speech? 2. If not, where can we find reported speech in a novel? 3. Where can we find direct speech in a novel? 4. Do we really need to backshift tenses of all the predicates to their corresponding past tenses in a novel(written in past tense)? For example, present perfect to past perfect? Thank you in advance.

Feb 1, 2017 12:30 PM

Answers · 5

Not all narrative is reported speech. Reported speech is specifically something like "He told me that the teacher said to come earlier" where the bit after that is reported, and so the speech is reported speech. But mostly yes.

February 1, 2017

1. Yes, that's right. So that also answers questions 2 and 3. :) 4. The short answer is yes. It's possible not to do this, but you need a very exact reason for it - it's not simply optional.

February 1, 2017