Rewrite the sentence in Indirect Speech. They said, ‘We know our duty.’
They said that they knew their duty
Indirect Speech Conversion: Rewriting The 'Know Your Duty' Sentence
This question asks us to convert a sentence from Direct Speech to Indirect Speech. Direct speech involves quoting the exact words spoken, usually enclosed in quotation marks. Indirect speech, on the other hand, reports what was said without quoting directly, often involving changes in pronouns, verb tenses, and time expressions.
The original sentence in Direct Speech is:
They said, ‘We know our duty.’
To convert this to Indirect Speech, we follow these steps:
- Reporting Verb: The reporting verb is 'said'. Since there is no object, it remains 'said'.
- Conjunction: We introduce the conjunction 'that' to connect the reporting verb to the reported clause.
- Pronoun Change: The first-person pronoun 'We' in the direct speech refers to 'They'. Therefore, in indirect speech, it changes to the third person pronoun 'they'.
- Verb Tense Change (Backshifting): The reporting verb 'said' is in the past tense. When the reporting verb is in the past tense, the verb in the reported clause usually shifts one tense back. The verb 'know' is in the Present Simple tense. It changes to the Past Simple tense, which is 'knew'.
- Possessive Pronoun Change: The possessive pronoun 'our' corresponds to 'We'. Since 'We' changes to 'they', 'our' changes to the corresponding third-person possessive pronoun 'their'.
Applying these changes, we get:
- Reporting Verb: They said
- Conjunction: that
- Pronoun: they
- Verb: knew
- Possessive Pronoun: their
- Object: duty
Combining these parts results in the sentence: They said that they knew their duty.
Let's look at the given options:
- Option 1: They said that they know their duty (Incorrect: Tense 'know' should be 'knew')
- Option 2: They said that they had known their duty (Incorrect: 'know' shifts to 'knew', not 'had known' in this context)
- Option 3: They said that they knew their duty (Correct: Follows all the rules of conversion)
- Option 4: They said that they knew our duty (Incorrect: Possessive pronoun 'our' should be 'their')
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