AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE
      Priyanka said to Rahul, “Why did you travel by train?”                I       would do this day.
      Now, let us look at the rules.                                        ̄          ̄
      Rules                                                            Subject      Verb
      (i) ‘Say’ is changed into – enquire (of), want to know         Note that, several silly problems are created on this
(of), etc.                                                      rule to vex students.
      Example:                                                       Example:
      Direct Narration: Kaushik said to me, “Who teaches             The guard of the company asked me who do I want to
you Maths?”                                                     meet in the office.
      Indirect Narration: Kaushik wanted to know                     In this sentence, instead of ‘who do I want’, you should
                                              ̄                  use ‘whom I wanted’.
                         ‘Said’ is changed to ‘wanted to know’       The correct sentence will be –
      who teaches me Maths.                                          The guard of the company asked me whom I wanted
      (ii) Inverted Commas (“ ”) are removed from the sen-      to meet in the office.
tence.                                                               Remember these rules related to the example given
      Example:                                                  above.
      Direct Narration: Siddharth said to Ajay,                      (i) In Indirect Narration, the sentence is always in
      “How did you learn to drive a car?”                       Assertive, therefore, the Assertive of ‘do I want’ will be ‘I
      Indirect Narration: Siddharth enquired Ajay of how        want’.
did he learn to drive a car.                                         (ii) As the Reporting Verb ‘asked’ is in the Past Tense,
      (Inverted Commas (“ ”) have been removed)                 therefore, there will also be the usage of Past Tense in the
                                                                Indirect Narration. Because of this reason, instead of ‘I
      (iii) If there is the question in the Reported Speech
                                                                want’ it will be ‘I wanted’.
whose answer can come as “Yes” or “No”, we should use
‘if’ or “whether” before the Reported Speech.                        (iii) Instead of ‘who’ it will be ‘whom’; because, ‘who’
                                                                does the work of a Subject and ‘whom’ Object.
      Direct Narration: Piyali said to Raju, “Do you know
the arrival time of Mumbai Rajdhani?”                                 (iv) The sign of Interrogation (?) is replaced with a
                                                                Full Stop (.) in the sentence.
      Indirect Narration: Piyali asked Raju if / whether he
knows the arrival time of Mumbai Rajdhani.                           Example:
      (iv) But if there are ‘Wh’ – Question (beginning with –        Direct Narration: Raja said to me, “Who have you
who / what / how / where / when / why, etc.) then               visited in the morning?”
before the Reported Speech i.e., Interrogative word, there           Indirect Narration: Raja asked you whom you had vis-
will be no usage of any Conjunction.                            ited in the morning.
      Example:                                                       Remember that, at the end of the sentence in Direct
      Direct Narration: You said to your sister, “What are      Narration, there is always the sign of Interrogation (?),
you writing?”                                                   while at the end of sentence in Indirect Narration there is
      Indirect Narration: You asked your sister what she        always a Full Stop (.).
was writing.                                                         Now, let us follow these rules to implement their us-
      Note that, problems are generally created in context      age and try the first five sentences given at the beginning
to this rule, where ‘that’, ‘as to’, etc. are put before Inter- of this topic.
rogative words.                                                      (i) She asked me if / whether I was coming with her.
      Example:                                                                                 Or,
      She asked me that how I got time to practice all these         She wanted to know if I was coming with her.
sums.                                                                (ii) He asked me if / whether I go to school.
      In this sentence, instead of ‘that how I got’, you should      (iii) You asked me / wanted to know what I was plan-
use ‘how I got’; i.e., before the Interrogative word ‘how’      ning to do.
the usage of ‘that’ should not occur, which is wrong.                (iv) Ranu asked Bhanu why he had been late.
      The correct form of the sentence will be –                     (v) Priyanka wanted to know from Rahul why had he
      She asked me how I got time to practice all these         travelled by train.
sums.                                                                Remember that, when the Reporting Verb is in the
      (v) The Reported Speech is changed into Assertive         Past Tense and there is the presence of was / were in
sentence (i.e., the order of Verb + Subject is changed into     Reported Speech, this was / were changes into ‘had been’.
Subject + Verb).                                                        INDIRECT NARRATION OF IMPERATIVE
      Example:
      Direct Narration: Lali said to me, “What
                                                                                         SENTENCES
        will      you do today?”                                     Look at the instincts of Imperative sentence.
                                                                     (i) Imperative sentence is used for stating Order, Re-
          ̄        ̄                                              quest, Negative Command, etc.
      Verb Subject                                                   (ii) Imperative sentence begins with the Principal Verb
      Indirect Narration: Lali asked me what                    in the sentence, like – Go, Bring, Make, etc.
                                                            SEE–72