Question

Choose the indirect speech of the given sentence.
Bond said, "I have caught the thief just now."
a) Bond said that he had caught the thief just then.
b) Bond said that I have been caught the thief just now.
c) Bond said that he has been caught the thief just then.
d) None of the above.

Answer 1

Hint: Indirect speech, or reported speech, is (grammar) a form of speech used to express what another has said; often involves a change of intensity. For example, if we were to change "Fred says "I will do the housework"." into reported speech it would become "Fred said that he would do the housework."

Complete answer:
In the given question, we have to change the given sentence in direct speech into indirect speech. We know that reported speech is formed by using the past perfect tense in case there is a present perfect tense in the direct speech sentence. Also, ‘now’ is changed to ‘then’, and ‘that’ is used for conjunction.
Let us thus analyze the options given to us in this question:
Option (a.), 'Bond said that he had caught the thief just then', is correct as it uses the correct tense and words as discussed above. It is in perfect indirect speech.
Option (b.), ‘Bond said that I have been caught the thief just now', is incorrect as it does not use past perfect tense.
Option (c.), ‘Bond said that he has been caught the thief just then', is incorrect as it does not use ‘that’ or even the correct tense (past perfect).
Option (d.), ‘none of the above', is incorrect as an option (a.) is correct.

Note:
In this question, it will be helpful for the student to recall what direct speech is. Direct speech is (grammar) the writing of speech, using the exact words of the speaker, usually between quotation marks.