I said to him, "Can you read this letter?"' Indirect form of the sentence is:
Correct answer: D. I asked him if he could read that letter.
- A. I said to him whether he read that letter.
- B. I asked him if could he read this letter.
- C. I told him that he could read that letter.
- D. I asked him if he could read that letter.
Explanation
The correct answer is: I asked him if he could read that letter.When converting direct speech to indirect speech, questions are often introduced with 'asked' and the word order is changed from that of a direct question. The pronoun 'you' changes to 'he', and 'this' changes to 'that'. The auxiliary verb 'can' changes to 'could' to reflect the backshift in tense.Option A is incorrect because it uses 'read' in the past tense without the auxiliary 'could'.Option B is incorrect because it retains the question word order of direct speech, which is not used in indirect speech.Option C is incorrect because it alters the sentence from a question to a statement, thus changing its meaning.If the Reported Speech in Direct Narration is introduced by Verbs like " be", "have", "do", or any other auxiliary Verbs like "can", "shall", "will", the connective " if ", " whether " is used after the Reporting Verb or object of the Reporting verb in the Indirect Narration.
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About Direct and Indirect Speech
Direct speech gives a speaker’s exact words, whereas indirect speech reports the meaning without quotation marks. Questions cover reporting verbs, pronoun changes, tense backshift, time and place expressions, punctuation, and the transformation of questions, commands and requests, including cases where backshift is not required.
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