Timeline for Reported speech changes the meaning?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
4 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 3 at 10:23 | comment | added | Peter Kirkpatrick | @user203412, it's ambiguous. Joe had done it tells us that (1) the action was in the past, and (2) the action was prior to some other event. But what other event? Without a context we don't know if it was prior to her arrival or prior to Tom speaking. Compare that with "Tom said that Joe did it before she arrived." Now we have a simple past tense but the preposition before is the word that tells us the order of events. There's more than one way to make your meaning clear. | |
| Aug 3 at 9:27 | vote | accept | user203412 | ||
| Aug 3 at 9:26 | comment | added | user203412 | I understand that we don"t have to back shift yet let's assume there's no other context and you here this sentence "Tom said that Joe had done it when she arrived." What are your thoughts? Do you think he did it before her coming or think it's ambiguous and you aren't sure? Btw I really appreciate your answer. Thank you so much. | |
| Aug 2 at 22:49 | history | answered | Peter Kirkpatrick | CC BY-SA 4.0 |