Hello friends, I hope that you are absolutely fit as a fiddle. I welcome you to this series of grammar lessons. This is the second part of the narration series wherein we are going to learn how we will change direct and indirect narration in assertive sentences.
In the first part, we have given detailed information about the types of sentences that we use in narration and the most important rules that we use to change from direct speech to indirect speech. In case, you have not gone through the previous part please learn the basic info about direct and indirect narration with examples.
Type of sentences
There are five types of sentences in narration just as I have shown in the table along with the connective words being used in different sentences.
| Sentence | Connective word |
| Assertive | That |
| Interrogative | If /whether or W.H.F |
| Imperative | To |
| Exclamatory | That |
| Optative | That |
Let’s dive deep into this article. We will have assertive sentences in narration examples with answers. Let’s summarize the general information about the first part.
There are two most important rules in narration. If you follow them, you will never ever make any mistakes.
Romeo is saying, “I will go to America.”
Let’s take this example!
Reporter “Romeo”
Reporting verb “is saying”
Reported speech “I will go to America.”
Rules in narration
1 When the reporting verb falls in the present or future tense, we will change the subject and the object.
2 When the reporting verb falls in the past tense, we change subject, object, tense, and other words.
You must read the first part once in order to go through all the lists to understand what and how we change.
Assertive sentences
We will first learn how to change the subject and the object in the sentences when the reporting verb falls in the present or future tense.
SON/123 rule:- according to this rule, we make changes in the reported speech written in inverted commas “___”.
The first person (I, We) in the reported speech changes according to the subject.
The second person (You) in the reported speech changes according to the object.
The third person (He, She, It, and They) in the reported speech doesn’t change.
| Person | Sub | Poss. Adj. | Obj. |
| 1st | I | My | Me |
| We | Our | Us | |
| 2nd | You | Your | You |
|
3rd |
They | Their | Them |
| She | Her | Her | |
| He | His | Him | |
| It | Its | It |
Let’s look at the indirect narration examples,
Romeo is saying, “I will go to America.” (Direct speech)
In this sentence the reporting verb is in the present tense, therefore we need to change the subject only. Here ‘I’ is the first person and thus will go to the subject (Romeo) which is a masculine gender hence we will use ‘HE’ for it.
Romeo is saying that he will go to America. (Indirect speech)
Tips to change into indirect speech
You should always look at the reporting verb first then follow the rules according.
Change of subject
The first and second person in the reported speech is always changed. If there is any first person who comes in the reported speech, it goes to the subject of the sentence.
The farmers say, “We have the responsibility to feed people.
The farmers say that they have the responsibility to feed people.
Change of object
The second person in the reported speech goes to the object in the sentence. You will always have the object after the reporting verb. For example,
He says to them.
I will say to my wife.
They said to me.
Teachers say to their students.
Narration Examples with Answers
He says to his friend, “You are my best friend.”
He tells his friend that he is his best friend.
Direct speech: “Can you lend me your book?” asked John.
Indirect speech: John asked if I could lend him my book.
Direct speech: “I saw a movie last night,” said Tom.
Indirect speech: Tom said that he had seen a movie the previous night.
Let’s test the learning!
