Question

Change the following statement into indirect speech.
My mother said,” May Heaven bless you.”
a. My mother said that Heaven might bless you.
b. My mother wished that Heaven may bless you.
c. My mother wished that Heaven might bless him.
d. My mother told that Heaven might bless him.

Answer 1

Hint: Read the given sentence and understand what it means. Then try to convey the same statement to a third person without quoting it. Now, choose the option which matches or is closest to the sentence you just framed. Make sure to form grammatically correct sentences.

Complete answer: In grammar, there are two types of speech that are
recognised - direct and indirect.
In direct speech, the sentence is written exactly as the person said it. However, in indirect
speech, a third person repeats the sentence that was originally said, so there are many
changes in the sentence.
From direct speech to indirect speech, the tense has to be changed from present to past.
When you convert a sentence from direct to indirect speech, the tense has to be changed
compulsorily. So, to change the speech here, we must change it to simple past tense. As it
is a question, in indirect speech, the word order goes back to normal, i.e. the subject
comes before the verb. There is also a conditional verb which will be converted into the simple past tense.

Now we know what we are looking for from the options. Let’s look at the given options:
a. My mother said that Heaven might bless you. - This sentence has not changed the direct object pronoun in the sentence. This makes the sentence grammatically incorrect. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
b. My mother wished that Heaven may bless you. - This sentence has also not changed the direct object pronoun in the sentence. This makes the sentence grammatically incorrect. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
c. My mother wished that Heaven might bless him. - This sentence has used the verb ‘wished’. This is inconsistent with the meaning of the given sentence. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
d. My mother told me that Heaven might bless him. - This sentence is the correct construction of indirect speech. This is the required answer. So, this is the correct option.

Note: Simple present tense sometimes gets converted into simple past tense in indirect speech, as it is a reported form of speech. It is not the exact quote someone said.