Narration Change of Interrogative Sentences

Back to: Direct and Indirect Speech (Narration)

Introduction

Interrogative sentence poses question. This type of sentence is very much different from assertive sentence which makes a statement. In interrogative sentence predicate (verb) comes first, then comes the subject. In some cases the helping verb comes before the subject and the main verb remains behind to form question. The entire verb can also be placed before subject in some instances. 

Interrogative sentence are two types –

1. WH – question.
2. Yes-no question. 

Rules

• WH – question is formed with the use of who, which, when, where, how why.
• Yes-no question is formed with the use of auxiliary verbs such as – am, is, are, was, were, do, did, can, shall, will, have, has, may. 
• A question mark should always be used at the end of interrogative sentence in direct speech.
• To convert direct speech to indirect speech quotation marks should be omitted. 
• Ask is used as reporting verb instead of say, tell, say to. 
• In narration change, interrogative sentence changes to assertive form [direct to indirect speech]
• After the conversion of interrogative sentence from direct to indirect speech, the question mark changes to full stop.
• The conjunction ‘that’ is not used to connect reporting and reported clause.
• Instead ‘if’ or ‘whether’ is used for the conversion of yes-no question.
• ‘If’, ‘whether’, ‘that’ are not used in WH– questions. 

Examples

Direct Speech	Indirect Speech
Ajay said to Rabi, “What did you do?”	Ajay asked Rabi what he had done.
He said to me, “Are you working today?”	He asked me if I was working that day.
He asked her, “Do you need something?”	He asked her if she needed something.
Ashok said to Rupa, “Are we going to go home?”	Ashok asked Rupa if they were going to go home.
The teacher asked me, “Why did not you come to school yesterday?”	The teacher asked me why I had not come to school the previous day.
He asked me, “How are you?”	He asked me how I was.
Mahu said to Radha, “Are you okay?’	Mahu asked Radha if she was okay.
Abhi said to Mani, “Who is your father?”	Abhi asked Mani who his father was.
He asked his friend, “Shall we go to picnic?”	He asked his friend if they should go to picnic.
I asked her, “Will you give me a pen.”	I asked her if she would give me a pen.