Question

Select the option which expresses the given sentence in Indirect speech:
The visitor said to Sameer," Why did your father drag you into this situation?"

• A. The visitor said to Sameer that why his father dragged him into this situation.
• B. The visitor asked Sameer why his father dragged him into that situation?
• C. The visitor asked Sameer why his father had dragged him into that situation.
• D. The visitor told Sameer why his father had dragged him into that situation?

Hint:

Remember the two key rules for Wh-questions in Indirect Speech:
1. Never use “that” before a Wh-word (e.g., “that why” is strictly incorrect).
2. Simple Past ($V_2$ did + $V_1$) always backshifts to Past Perfect (had + $V_3$).

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Concept:
Direct to Indirect Speech transformation of interrogative sentences (specifically Wh-questions) requires the application of several fundamental grammatical shift rules. When converting an interrogative sentence:
1. Reporting Verb: The reporting verb “said to” changes to “asked”, “inquired of”, or “demanded of”.
2. Conjunction Connector: No conjunction like “that” or “if/whether” is used before Wh-question words (who, what, where, why, when, how). The Wh-word itself functions as the connecting relative adverb.
3. Sentence Structure Shift: The inverted interrogative word order (Auxiliary + Subject + Main Verb) must convert into standard assertive word order (Subject + Auxiliary/Verb), and the question mark is replaced by a full stop.
4. Tense Backshift: A Simple Past tense verb in direct speech (“did drag”) backshifts into the Past Perfect tense (“had dragged”).
5. Pronoun and Deictic Shifts: Second-person possessives and pronouns shift according to the object of the reporting verb (“your father” $\rightarrow$ “his father”, “you” $\rightarrow$ “him”), and proximal demonstratives shift to distal forms (“this” $\rightarrow$ “that”).

Step 1: Transformation Analysis of the Direct Sentence:
- Reporting clause: “The visitor said to Sameer” $\longrightarrow$ “The visitor asked Sameer”.
- Interrogative connector: “Why” remains “why” (never preceded by “that”).
- Subject transposition: The subject “your father” shifts to third-person singular “his father”.
- Tense shift: Simple past “did drag” shifts to past perfect “had dragged”.
- Object pronoun shift: Object “you” shifts to “him”.
- Demonstrative shift: “this situation” shifts to “that situation”.
- Punctuation: The terminating question mark is replaced by a period (full stop).

Step 2: Evaluation of Options:
- Option (A): Incorrectly includes the redundant conjunction “that” before “why”, fails to backshift the tense to past perfect (uses “dragged”), and retains the proximal demonstrative “this”.
- Option (B): Incorrectly uses simple past “dragged” instead of past perfect “had dragged” and mistakenly retains the question mark.
- Option (C): Accurately applies the reporting verb “asked”, eliminates “that”, applies past perfect “had dragged”, converts “this” to “that”, and ends with a full stop.
- Option (D): Uses the incorrect reporting verb “told” for an interrogative construction and retains the question mark.

Step 3: Final Answer:
The correctly transformed sentence is given in Option (C).