Select the option that expresses the given sentence in indirect speech. He said, “I can't attend the meeting tomorrow.”
The correct answer is option 2: "He said that he couldn't attend the meeting the next day."
When converting direct speech to indirect speech, several changes are necessary to maintain grammatical accuracy and reflect the shift in time and perspective. The original sentence, "He said, “I can't attend the meeting tomorrow,”" is in the first person and present tense. The indirect speech version must reflect a third-person perspective and adjust the tense accordingly.
- Pronoun Change: The pronoun "I" changes to "he" to reflect the third-person perspective of the reporting clause.
- Tense Change: The verb "can't" (contraction of "cannot," a present tense modal verb) changes to "couldn't" (past tense of "cannot"). This backshifting of tense is crucial in indirect speech to show that the statement being reported occurred in the past.
- Time Adverbial Change: The time adverbial "tomorrow" changes to "the next day." This is because "tomorrow" refers to the day after the utterance in direct speech, but in indirect speech, it needs to be expressed relative to the reporting verb's past tense—hence, "the next day."
Options 1 and 3 incorrectly retain the present tense ("can't") and thus fail to reflect the past-tense nature of the reported speech. Option 4, while changing the tense correctly, fails to adjust the time adverbial "tomorrow," making the statement inaccurate in its temporal context within the indirect speech structure. Therefore, only Option 2 accurately reflects all the necessary changes for a grammatically correct indirect speech conversion.
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