Reported Speech. Affirmative sentences

Reported speech is often also called indirect speech. Sentences with reported speech are usually complex as they consist of the main clause and the object subordinate clause.

If the verb in the main clause is in the present or future tenses, there is no change of tenses in the subordinate clause.

But if the predicate of the main clause is used in the past tenses, some tense changes are required in the subordinate clause.

Study the chart of the Sequence of Tenses:

Direct Speech		Reported Speech
Present simple	®	Past simple
Present continuous	®	Past continuous
Present perfect	®	Past perfect
Present perfect continuous	®	Past perfect continuous
Past simple	®	Past perfect
Past continuous	®	Past perfect continuous
Past perfect	®	Past perfect
Will	®	Would
Can	®	Could

Cf.

Direct Speech	Reported Speech
He says: “Finance Manager has to discuss the terms of payment”.	He says that Finance Manager has to discuss the terms of payment.
He said: “Finance Manager has to discuss the terms of payment”	He said that Finance Manager had to discuss the terms of payment.

N.B. If there is the so-called general truth in the subordinate clause, so the Present tense is applied, notwithstanding the predicate of the main clause and its tense form.

Direct Speech	Reported Speech
He said: “People depend on the resources of the Earth”.	He said that people depend on the resources of the Earth.

When we transform sentences from direct speech into indirect speech, very often it is necessary to replace some pronouns and adverbs in the subordinate clause.

Here are some examples:

Direct Speech		Reported Speech
here	®	there
this	®	that
these	®	those
now	®	then
yesterday	®	the day before
tomorrow	®	the following day
last week	®	the week before
next year	®	the year after/the following year
ago	®	before
today	®	that day
in a few days	®	a few days later

Look through the text below and answer the following questions:

1. How many types of trade are there given in the text?

2. What was the initial form of trade?

3. Who was the first to define the notion of trade?

The word trade has always been used in a generic fashion and the attempts of deciphering the meaning of this word has only been done by economists and business people.Trade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person to another. Such exchanges of goods or services can be between two parties or several parties. Bilateral trade refers to the trade that takes place between two parties whereas multilateral trade occurs when more than two parties are involved in the transaction.

The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services. Later one side of the barter was metals, precious metals (poles, coins), bill, and paper money. Modern traders instead generally negotiate through a medium of exchange, such as money.

There are different types of trade. One type of trade is retail trade in which retailers are business firms engaged in offering goods and services directly to consumers. Fair trade is an agreement between a manufacturer and retailers so that manufacturer product to be sold at the agreed price. One category of trade is the free trade in which trade takes place without restrictions. In the free trade, there are no barriers such as quotas or tariffs. Free trade includes trade of goods without taxes, trade distorted policies, free access to markets, free movement of labor in countries and free movement of capital between countries. Balanced trade is an alternative model to free trade in which nations are required to provide a fairly pattern. Silent trade also called Depot trade is a type of trade by which people with no common language could barter goods. It is the specialized form of barter in which goods are exchanged without any direct link between the traders. In this, one group goes to the customary spot; deposits the goods to be traded and withdraws giving a signal such as a call. The e-commerce or electronic trade a type of business model that enables a firm to conduct trade over an electronic network such as on internet. Electronic trade operates in major market segments like business to business, consumer to business and consumer to consumer. In this type of trade, practitioners utilize the internet to product information, take orders, generate leads, and make customer databases. Electronic commerce or trade may be adopted more rapidly by the buyers of services and products such as information, photos or software. In commodity trade, commodities were things of value of uniform quality produced in large quantities by different producers and commodities price are determined as a function of their market as a whole. Basically, these are general resources and agricultural products such as crude oil, coal, sugar, soybeans, rice, wheat, silver and gold. Wholesale trade is the sales of goods to retailers, to industrial, commercial or to professionals businesses. Exchange of goods and services across international boundaries is termed as international trade. International trade represents a significant share of Gross Domestic Product and increase the growth of world’s economy. A stock exchange or share market is a mutual organization which provides facilities for traders and stock brokers. Trade on an exchange is done by members only; the initial offering of stocks and bonds to investors is done in the primary market and subsequent trading is in the secondary market. Computer and telecommunications technology has given rise to trading on an international level. In trade, a retailer buys goods from manufacturer in large quantities either directly or through wholesaler and then sells these goods in smaller quantities to the end user. Manufacturing marketers see the retailing as an essential part of their overall distribution strategy.