7.58 referring to people and things

For example, if a man is talking to someone about a woman called Jenny, and he says, 'I saw her in the High Street', there are a number of ways in which this statement can be reported. If the original speaker repeats what he said, he could say, 'I said I saw her in the High Street.' 'I' and 'her' do not change, because they still refer to the same people.

If the original listener reports what was said, he or she could say, 'He said he saw her in the High Street.' 'I' becomes 'he', because the statement is reported from the point of view of a third person, not from the point of view of the original speaker.

If the original listener reports the statement to Jenny, 'her' becomes 'you': 'He said he saw you in the High Street'.

The original listener might report the statement to the original speaker. This time, 'I' has to change to 'you': 'You said you saw her in the High Street'.

Possessive determiners and pronouns change in the same way as personal pronouns in order to keep the same reference. So the following sentences could all report the same question: 'She asked if he was my brother', 'She asked if you were my brother', 'I asked if he was her brother.' The original question might have been expressed as 'Is he your brother?'