Grammar: Sentence: Quoting and reporting speech and thoughts

Reporting speech and thoughts

Structure of indirect speech: Student problems

Learners of English often mix features of direct speech with those of indirect speech without necessarily making a grammatical mistake: 

Kitty asked her friend //  where   has   Ricky  gone?                                    wh- item   Finite   Subject

Here the writer uses the structure of direct speech in the reported clause (as shown by the order of Finite and Subject, preceded by the wh- item), but none of the punctuation of direct speech. If the writer had intended direct speech, this sentence should have been written as follows: 

Kitty asked her friend, "Where   has   Ricky  gone?" [direct speech]                                         wh- item   Finite   Subject

However, the sentence Kitty asked her friend where has Ricky gone? may be a mixture of direct and indirect speech called 'free indirect speech':

"Am I early?" Kitty asked herself. [direct speech] Was she early, Kitty asked herself. [free indirect speech] Kitty asked herself if she was early. [indirect speech]

The structure of 'free indirect speech' maintains the mood of the quoted or direct speech clause, ie both am I early? and was she early? are yes/no interrogatives, thus showing the two clauses as being in a linking (or coordinating) relationship. However, tense and personal pronoun are changed from am I to was she, thus showing that the clause was she early? is a reported and not a quoted clause. The free indirect speech structure may be used with all forms of quoting and reporting, both of speech and thoughts, and while it is grammatically anomalous, it is not ungrammatical. 

Free indirect speech is not usually taught to learners of English. Instead, it is better for teachers to encourage students to be explicit about whether they intend to produce direct or indirect speech. This usually means drawing their attention to the correct punctuation for either form, as illustrated in the examples here. 

Note that the terms Subject and Finite are written with an initial capital to remind us that they are functional terms.