Quotative

Template:Short description Template:More citations needed A quotative (abbreviated Template:Sc) is a grammatical device to mark quoted speech. When a quotation is used, the grammatical person and tense of the original utterance is maintained, rather than adjusting it as would be the case with reported speech. It can be equated with "spoken quotation marks."

Dutch

In Dutch, the preposition van can be used to introduce direct speech:

Ik zei er van Japie sta stil (a line from a children's song).

I said, 'Japie [colloquial diminutive of Jaap], stand still.'

Quotative van can be used in combination with a verb of speech, as in the above example, a noun designating something with message-carrying content, or a light verb, e.g. a copula (like for English quotative like).

In the specific colloquial combination zoiets hebben van (literally, "have something suchlike of"), the subsequent quoted speech conveys a (possibly unspoken) feeling:

De ouders hadden zoiets van laten we het maar proberen, wie weet lukt het.

The parents were like, let's try it, who knows it will work.

English

In English the most common quotative has historically been the verb say:

He said, 'You'll love it.'  And I said, 'You can't be serious!Template:'

Starting in the late 20th century, the expression be like began to be used frequently as a quotative in colloquial speech:

He was like, 'You'll love it.'  And I was like, 'You can't be serious!Template:'

In speech, the word like in this use is typically followed by a brief pause, indicated here with a comma. This quotative construction is particularly common for introducing direct speech indicating someone's attitude.

Georgian

Georgian marks quoted speech with one of two suffixes depending on the grammatical person of who made the original utterance, -მეთქი for the first person and -ო for the second and third person.

The following sentences show the use of the first person and non-first person quotative particles respectively. Note the preservation of both the person and tense of the original utterances:

Second and third person quotative

Note that this second sentence omits an overt verbum dicendi since the original speaker is already known, and context makes it clear that the speaker was the original addressee.

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek can mark quoted speech in prose with the subordinating conjunction ὅτι:

Japanese

In Japanese, the quotative と [to] is used to indicate direct speech in this sentence:

The following example shows the preservation of both grammatical person and the tense in a quoted utterance using the quotative particle:

See Japanese grammar for more examples of when と (to) is used.

Korean

In Korean, the marker rago follows the quoted sentence clause, marking direct quotation as follows:

The verb malhada, "to say", is often shortened to hada, meaning "to do". This is because the quotative marker alone makes it obvious the quote was said by someone, so saying the whole verb is redundant.

Indirect quotation works similarly, albeit using different markers. When quoting a plain sentence, the marker n/neundago ( ndago after vowels, neundago after consonants) is attached to the quoted verb. When quoting adjectives, dago is used:

When quoting the copula ida, the marker rago is used instead:

Question sentences are marked with the quotative marker nyago, which changes to neunyago after verbs ending in a consonant and to eunyago after adjectives ending in a consonant.

Sanskrit

In Sanskrit, the quotative marker iti is used to convey the meaning of someone (or something) having said something.

Sinhala

In the following English sentence, no word indicates the quoted speech.

John said, "Wow,"

That is indicated only typographically. In Sinhala, on the other hand, here is the equivalent sentence:

John Wow kiyalaa kivvaa

It has an overt indication of quoted speech after the quoted string Wow, the quotative kiyalaa.

Telugu

In Telugu, traditionally the words andi (for female and neuter singular), meaning she said that or it said, annāḍu (for male singular), meaning he said that and annāru (for plural), meaning They said are used as quotative markers. However, in recent times, many Telugu speakers are resorting to use the Latin quotation marks ("...") to convey speech.

For example:

Turkish

In Turkish, direct speech is marked by following it by a form of the verb Template:Wikt-lang ("to say"), as in

'I am ill', he said.

In particular, the word Template:Wikt-lang (literally "saying"), a participle of demek, is used to mark quoted speech when another verb of utterance than demek is needed:

'Am I ill?', he asked.

In contrast, indirect speech uses the opposite order. The reported utterance is preceded by the verb of utterance and introduced by the conjunctive particle Template:Wikt-lang, comparable to English "that":

He said that he was ill.

See also

• Verbum dicendi
• Quoted speech
• Reported speech