sccarlson wrote:David Lim wrote:I think I don't understand your terminology. Besides reported speech or thoughts or feelings, what other kinds of indirect discourse are there? Do you agree that the infinitive in an indirect discourse conveys relative time within the scope of the discourse? What do you mean by "indirect commands and indirect questions"?
Indirect discourse is the reporting of speech in a dependent (or infinitival) clause. The speech reported could be a statement, command, question, etc.
As a result, it was confusing to me when you said
I considered "εν αυτω μενειν" to be an indirect statement rather than an indirect discourse.
That's like saying that you considered someone's pet to be a cat rather than a mammal.
Okay. I see why we misunderstood one another.. I was saying that I considered "εν αυτω μενειν" to be
not a reported speech, but rather a statement from the author's point of view concerning what this one said, just as I consider the infinitive together with the accusative in "εν τω" / "μετα το" / "εως του" / "προ του" +
inf. +
acc. not to be a reported speech. However I think you consider "εν αυτω μενειν" to be reported speech? If so, can you tell me the phrase that was spoken and explain why you think it was actually spoken directly?
sccarlson wrote:I am concerned that my previous attempts to explain have only confused matters more, and, rather than get side-tracked, I'd really like to get back to the source of your distinction between indirect statements and indirect discourse. So I renew my question: What grammar are you using?
The simple answer is, none apart from Funk's Grammar. However I do not just follow it but also draw my own inferences from reading and searching the Greek texts. I used "indirect statement" to refer to complete clauses (sentences) that are converted into an object, which now clearly seems not to be the meaning others associate with it. Is there a proper term for this?