Query Details

Query Subject:	Free Direct/Indirect Speech
Author:	Adam Glaz
Submitter Email:	click here to access email

Linguistic LingField(s):	Semantics

Query:	Dear Linguists, I’m seeking help with Free Direct/Indirect Speech and related categories. At a seminar on point of view I presented my students with the sentence He said, they never let him know! (assuming “he” and “him” to be coreferential) and claimed it was an instance of Free Direct Speech, where the Direct Speech starting point is: He said: “They never let me know!” I assumed the DS sentence was simply “freed” by removing the quotes, especially as the tense is left unchanged. However, my students objected by pointing out that the use of the pronoun “him” and the presence of the exclamation mark were indicative of Free Indirect Speech. I said this couldn’t be FIS due to the presence of the reporting clause “he said” and the retention of Simple Past rather than a change into Past Perfect (They had never let him know! is clearly an instance of FIS). So we couldn’t decide what it was: can we assume it’s a category in between FDS and FIS, rather than a variant of either? I would be grateful for assistance from those with more expertise in the subject than myself. Please reply to adam.glaz “at” umcs.lublin.pl I will be happy to post a summary if there’s enough interest. Best wishes to all, Adam Glaz UMCS, Lublin, Poland
LL Issue:	17.3115
Date posted:	23-Oct-2006
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