Thursday 4 April 2013

Reported Propositions: Shift In Deixis

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 462):
… a reported proposition typically takes on a set of related features collectively known as ‘indirect speech’. What happens is that all deictic elements are shifted away from reference to the speech situation: personals away from first and second person (speaker and listener) to third, and demonstratives away from near (here-&-now) to remote.