Direct and Indirect Narration

Suppose there is a sentence-

Ram said to Ravan, "I shall kill you today." (Direct)

It will change to-

Ram told Ravan that he should kill him that day. (Indirect)

If we want to include direct speech to our writing then we require direct wordings of the speaker that we add to our text with quotation marks " ".  And if we write it in our writing changing to our own words then we need to change it to indirect speech only then we become able to write it correctly.

In above Direct speech-
Ram said to Ravan - is called Reporting Verb (RV)
"I shall kill you today." - is called Reported Speech (RS)

Rules to change to Indirect Speech-

Rule 1- the following changes appear in Reporting Verb (RV)

said - no change
say - no change
says - no change
said to - told
say to - tell
says to - tells

Rule 2 - Comma (,) and Inverted commas (" ") are removed and RV and RS are added with the word 'that'

Rule 3 - 
If RV is in Present or Future tense then there will be no change in the tense of RS
If RV is in Past tense then there will be change in Tense of RS as follows-


All Present - Past
Past Indefininte - Past Perfect
Past Continuous -  Past Perfect Continuous
Past Perfect - no change
Past Perfect Continuous - no change
Will - would
Shall - should
may - might
can - could
was/were - had been
ought to/should/must/might/could/would - no change

Rule 4 - 

Consider the following exmple-

 He(Subject) said to me(Object), " Ist Person, IInd Person, IIIrd Person"

If there appears Ist Person in RS then it will be changed according to Subject (Ist)
If there appears IInd person in RS then it will be changed according to Object (IInd)
If there appears IIIrd person in RS then there will be no change

we may also write this rule as -

123
-----
SON

where 1, 2 and 3 represents persons of the pronouns/noun and S, O and N represent Subject, Object and No change respectively.

Note : If there is IInd person in RS and no object is present in RV then it will be changed to Ist Person.

Rule 5-

The words of Far changes to words of Near as

here - there 
come - go
this - that
these - those
now - then
yesterday - the previous day
tomorrow - the next day
today - that day
tonight - that night
the next day - the following day


(The post is being written further)


Truly
Anubhav Sharma

Passive and Active Voice

When we are interested in Object instead of Subject we use Passive Form of the sentence.

For Example:

Ram killed Ravana.

will be changed to 

Ravana was killed by Ram.

If we are writing story of Ravana instead of Ram, we use this passive form here.

Now we should know how to identify the object in a sentence-

Let the following sentence is there-

Ram gave me a book.

Here gave is the Verb and we add 'What, क्या' or To Whom, किसको ' to the verb we get 'a book' and 'me' both. Both of these are objects. By 'What' we get 'a book' that is a Thing as Direct Object and by 'To Whom' we get 'me' that is a Person as Indirect Object.

Now following four rules are there to convert Active to Passive-

1. Object is changed to Subject.

2. Subject is moved to the place of an object following with 'by' to the end.

3. Third form of Verb is used.

4. Tenses are changed as follows-

                              Present               Past             Future

Indefinite               is,am,are           was,were     will be, Shall be

Continuous             is,am,are           was, were            X

                              being                 being

Perfect                   has, have             had             will/shall

                              been                  been            have been

Perfect Continuous       X                      X                    X

So Ram gave me a book will be changed to -

I was given a book by Ram.

Or

A book was given me by Ram.

Forms of Subjects or Object are used accordingly as-

Subjective form               Objective Form

            I                                Me

           We                              Us

          You                             You

           He                              Him

          She                              Her

         They                            Them

          It                                 It

Imperative sentences are the sentences in which Subject You is hidden and it starts with a Verb. In Imperative sentences the following rules are applied-

Let + Object + be + IIIrd Form of Verb + .............

For Example:

Open the Door.

Let the door be opened.

But if an Imperative starts with 'Do not' the following syntax is applied-

Let + Object +  not be + IIIrd Form of Verb + ..................

Sentences that starts with 'Please' will be changed as follows-

You are requested + to + sentence.

Some sentences that do not have object will be changed as follows-

You are ordered/advised + to + sentence.

Next : Direct and Indirect Narrations

Truly Yours

Anubhav Sharma