On the social practice of indirect reports

Abstract

This chapter deals with the social practice of indirect reports and treats them as cases of language games. It proposes a number of principles like the following: Paraphrasis/Form Principle The that-clause embedded in the verb ‘say’ is a paraphrasis of what Y said, and meets the following constraints: should Y hear what X said he (Y) had said, he would not take issue with it, as to content, but would approve of it as a fair paraphrasis of his original utterance. Furthermore, he would not object to vocalizing the assertion made out of the words following the complementizer ‘that’ on account of its form/style. The upshot of the chapter is that opacity in indirect reports is the result of applying pragmatic principles.