Reported Speech and Active Voice Rules

Reported Speech Rules

Reported speech is a type of speech where someone reports what another person said using indirect statements. When converting direct speech to reported speech, there are several rules that must be followed to ensure accuracy and clarity:

1. Changes in tense: Direct speech uses present simple tense unless it's part of an ongoing action, while reported speech always uses past tense to indicate the time when the quote was spoken.
2. Question tags: If the original speaker used question tags like 'you know', 'don't you?', etc., they need to change to 'hadn't you?' in reported speech.
3. Tag questions: Tags like 'would you?' become 'did he/she/they say?'.
4. Adverbial clauses: Certain adverbial clauses such as 'after...ing', 'while...ing', 'when...ing', and 'whenever...ing' can introduce tenses other than the expected ones.
5. Interpolated expressions: Some interpolations may have different forms depending on whether they occur before or after be verbs.

Direct Speech to Reported Speech Conversion

Converting direct speech to reported speech involves transforming the direct quote into its reported form. Here are some general rules for making this conversion:

1. Change all present tenses to past perfect or past simple.
2. Change first person singular pronouns ('I') to 'he/she/it'.
3. For second person plural pronouns, change 'you' to 'him/her/them'.
4. Third person singular pronouns remain unchanged.
5. Pronouns corresponding to nouns change according to their gender.

For example, "You don't want us to go shopping?" becomes "He didn't say that they wanted them to go shopping.".

Active Voice Definition

Active voice refers to a sentence structure where the subject performs the action indicated by the verb. In contrast, passive voice has the subject receiving the action.

Example: Noel acts quickly. - This is written in active voice because Noel performs the action. Noel is acted upon quickly. - This is written in passive voice because Noel receives the action.

Passive Voice Examples

Passive voice sentences often begin with an auxiliary verb like 'be', 'have', or 'get', which combines with a main verb ending in '-en' to create a passive voice construction.

Example: The cake was baked by Sarah. - This is a passive voice sentence.

Changing Active to Passive Voice

Changing active voice to passive voice typically involves moving the object of the active sentence to become the subject of the new sentence, and adding a form of the verb 'to be' as well as the past participle of the main verb.

Example: She ate the sandwich. -> The sandwich was eaten by her.

In summary, understanding the differences between reported speech and active voice, as well as their respective rules and conversions, is essential for effective communication and writing.