Select the option that expresses the given sentence in reported speech. Mohan said, “I live in Mumbai”.
Mohan said that he lived in Mumbai.
Two changes are required.
1. Pronoun. I stands for the speaker, who is Mohan, so it becomes he.
2. Tense backshift. The reporting verb said is past, so the simple present live moves back to the simple past lived.
Why the backshift applies here. Where a particular person lives is a personal circumstance that can change — it is not a universal truth or scientific fact. So the ordinary rule holds, unlike in E26 and E28 of this same paper, where the exemption applied.
That gives ‘Mohan said that he lived in Mumbai.’
Checking the others:
‘Mohan said that I was living in Mumbai.’ — keeps I, which would make the reporter the resident, and also switches to the past continuous.
‘Mohan said that he is living in Mumbai.’ — pronoun corrected but no backshift, and the tense changed to present continuous.
‘Mohan said that I am living in Mumbai.’ — both pronoun and tense wrong.
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