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Indirect speech, also known as reported speech or indirect discourse, is a means of expressing the content of statements, questions or other utterances, without quoting them explicitly as is done in direct speech. For example, ''He said "I'm coming"'' is direct speech, whereas ''He said (that) he was coming'' is indirect speech. Indirect speech should not be confused with indirect speech acts. In grammar, indirect speech often makes use of certain syntactic structures such as content clauses ("that" clauses, such as ''(that) he was coming''), and sometimes infinitive phrases. References to questions in indirect speech frequently take the form of interrogative content clauses, also called indirect questions (such as ''whether he was coming''). In indirect speech certain grammatical categories are changed relative to the words of the original sentence. For example, person may change as a result of a change of speaker or listener (as ''I'' changes to ''he'' in the example above). In some languages, including English, the tense of verbs is often changed – this is often called sequence of tenses. Some languages have a change of mood: Latin switches from indicative to the infinitive (for statements) or the subjunctive (for questions).〔Allen, Joseph Henry; Greenough, James Bradstreet; D'Ooge, Benjamin Leonard. ''(New Latin Grammar for schools and colleges ).'' Ginn, 1916. :page 584, paragraph 580: declaratory sentences in indirect discourse; :p. 380, par. 586: questions in indirect discourse.〕 When written, indirect speech is not normally enclosed in quotation marks or any similar typographical devices for indicating that a direct quotation is being made. However such devices are sometimes used to indicate that the indirect speech is a faithful quotation of someone's words (with additional devices such as square brackets and ellipses to indicate deviations or omissions from those words), as in ''He informed us that "after dinner () would like to make an announcement".'' ==Changes in form== In indirect speech, words generally have referents appropriate to the context in which the act of reporting takes place, rather than that in which the speech act being reported took place (or is conceived as taking place). The two acts often differ in reference point (origo) – the point in time and place and the person speaking – and also in the person being addressed and the linguistic context. Thus when a sentence involves words or forms whose referents depend on these circumstances, they are liable to change when the sentence is put into indirect speech. In particular this commonly affects: *personal pronouns, such as ''I, you, he, we'', and the corresponding verb forms (in pro-drop languages the meaning of the pronoun may be conveyed solely by verb inflection). *demonstratives, such as ''this'' and ''that''. *phrases of relative time or place such as ''now'', ''yesterday'' and ''here''. There may also be a change of tense or other modifications to the form of the verb, such as change of mood. These changes depend on the grammar of the language in question – some examples can be found in the following sections. It should be noted that indirect speech need not refer to a speech act that has actually taken place; it may concern future or hypothetical discourse; for example, ''If you ask him why he's wearing that hat, he'll tell you to mind your own business.'' 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. This contrasts with direct speech, where there is an expectation that the original words will be reproduced exactly. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Indirect speech」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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