NARRATION

 

Narration is an account of spoken words.

The words of the speaker can be expressed in two ways:-

1.  Direct speech:- When actual words of the speaker are quoted, it is called direct speech or direct narration e.g.

He said, “I am very tired.”

In the sentence, whatever dialogue is outside “ ”, is known as reporting speech and whatever is in “ ”, is called reported speech. The verb of reporting speech is called reporting verb. In this sentence ‘He said’ is reporting speech, “I am very tired” reported speech and ‘said’ reporting verb.

2. Indirect speech:- When the substance of what the speaker said is given, without quoting his actual words, it is called indirect speech or indirect narration e.g.

He said that he was very tired.

GENERAL RULE OF THE CHANGE OF DIRECT SPEECH INTO INDIRECT SPEECH

i.   Common rules relating to the change of narration:-

ii.  Inverted comma (“...”) is removed from reported speech.

iii. Following reporting verb or before Indirect statement, comma (,) is replaced with ‘that’, ‘if’ or ‘to’.

iv. Person of personal pronouns of reported speech is changed as follows:-   

(a) Pronouns of first person of reported speech are changed in accordance with person of subject of reporting verb.

I	My	Me	First Person
We	Our	Us

(b) Pronouns of second person of reported speech are changed in accordance with person of object of reporting verb.

You Thou

Your Thy

You Thee

Second Person

(c) No change is made in pronouns of third person of reported speech.

He	His	Him	Third person
She	Her	Her
It	Its	It
They	Their	Them

v.  When reporting verb is in the past tense, the change in the tense of reported speech is made in accordance with the tense of reporting verb as follows:-

Present indefinite	ÛÜ	Past indefinite
Present continuous	ÛÜ	Past continuous
Present perfect	ÛÜ	Past perfect
Present perfect continuous	ÛÜ	Past perfect continuous
Past indefinite	ÛÜ	Past perfect
Past continuous	ÛÜ	Past perfect continuous
Past perfect	ÛÜ	No change
Past perfect continuous	ÛÜ	No change
Is/am/are	ÛÜ	Was/were
Has/have	ÛÜ	Had
Will/shall	ÛÜ	Would/should
Can	ÛÜ	Could
May	ÛÜ	Might

Exceptions:

1. No change is made in the tense of reported speech, when it refers to a universal truth, customary or habitual fact, a probable event or a past historical incident; whether reporting verb is in past tense.

2.  When reporting verb is in present tense or future tense, no change is made in the tense of reported speech.

vi. Some words denoting proximity are replaced with the words denoting distance.

This	ÛÜ	That
These	ÛÜ	Those
Here	ÛÜ	There
Hence	ÛÜ	Thence
Hereby	ÛÜ	Thereby
Now	ÛÜ	Then
Today	ÛÜ	That day
Tomorrow	ÛÜ	The next day
The next day	ÛÜ	The following day
Yesterday	ÛÜ	The previous day
Yesterday	ÛÜ	The day before
Ago	ÛÜ	before
Thus	ÛÜ	So
Hither	ÛÜ	Thither
Last night	ÛÜ	The previous night
Last night	ÛÜ	The night before
Just	ÛÜ	Then
Come	ÛÜ	Go