What exactly is backshifting and grammar?
I saw this term, backshifting, in an answer to another question, that was not endorsed by the community: “he
process called backshifting…signthat the speech is not direct/quoted but rather it is indirect/reported.
What is the purpose of this answer?
How does backshifting work in English? All examples are requested!
What are the ten reasons why a person should stay away from work for a month?
Is there any difference between direct and indirect speech, that is extra noticeable when an indirect speech is subordinate to a sentence in past tense?
You broke into tears
(Direct speech, no shifting). She announced she would tell him that you had lied. Who did you tell him? Because the tense of
the main clause is in the past (announced), the finite verbs in the reported/indirect speech shift back in time: “will” becomes “would”, and “lied” becomes “had lied”.
So, I become “she”, because I decided that it was “she” who was announcing his or her own intentions (“she said “in the first example). On a purely personal note, could you say, “She announced that I would…”? Why is it better to know who is talking
to tell yourself about somebody?
