You were probably introduced to a common use of infinitives early in your Latin studies with complementary infinitives; that is, an infinitive used along with verbs like possum, debeo, or volo/nolo/malo. But, technically, infinitives are verbal nouns and can even function in the place of the missing nominative gerund: bibere est vivere—To drink is to live. But another common—and important to learn!—use of Latin infinitives is their use in indirect statements.
You certainly already know the present infinitive forms and hopefully you also remember how to form perfect infinitives. There are also future infinitives (which are fairly rare). All the possible forms of infinitives are in the table below, as well as the details of forming them.
Deponent verbs only have three forms and will look passive in form. So, experior, experiri, expertus sum has the following infinitives:
present: experiri – to try
perfect: expertus, -a, -um esse – to have tried
future: expertum iri – to be about to try
Finally, in the case of both the perfect passive and future active infinitives use a combination of a participle and esse. When you use the infinitive in a sentence, you’ll need to choose the correct gender/number/case for the given situation. That is, “the letter ought to have been sent” would be epistula amata esse debet.
An indirect statement is when you report what someone said (or thought or saw or perceived) without using quotation marks. It’s easiest to explain this with examples:
Direct statements Indirect statements
a) I said, "my cat is sleepy." A) I said that my cat is sleepy.
b) "We should go swimming," declared Bruno. B) Bruno declared that we should go swimming.
c) "I saw that house," he said. C) He said that he had seen that house.
d) The guy thought, "he should drink more water." D) The guy thought that he should drink more water.
e) The guy thought, "I should drink more water." E) The guy thought that he should drink more water.
Summary: How indirect statements work in English
In English, we begin an indirect statement with a verb of speech or perception. We'll call this a “head verb” because many forms of perception come from your head. Some examples” “he said,” “she thought,” “they called,” “we heard,” “I saw,” etc. Then, usually we add the word “that” after the head verbs. But then you also need to think about how the subject of the quotation works in connection with the subject who is reporting the statement (as in examples c, d and e). Finally, a sentence with an indirect statement will begin with the person reporting the quote, no matter where the “they said” might have been in a direct statement.
Latin authors didn’t have quotation marks—all reported speech uses some sort of verbal construction to mark it out. In the case of an indirect statement, Latin also begins by marking the speech with a “head verb” but then, Latin uses an accusative-infinitive construction to report the speech. In this case, the reported quotation shifts the subject of the quotation into the accusative case and the main verb turns into an infinitive. It also doesn’t use any word for the English word “that.”
In short: sentences marking indirect statement in Latin =
“head verb” + acc subject of direct statement + infinitive.
Additionally, if you need to use a personal pronoun (e.g. “I thought that you were asleep.” or “We said we were coming.”) you’ll use an accusative personal pronoun as an indirect statement. If the speaker is in the 3rd person and talking about themself (e.g. “Varius said that he (Varius) wasn’t there.”), you’ll use “se”, if they’re talking about another person (e.g. “Did you see Marcus at the tavern?” “No! And Varius said that he (Marcus) wasn’t there.”), you’ll use “eum/eam” (or “illum”, etc).
Here are the examples from above with their Latin translations:
a) I said, "my cat is sleepy." A) I said that my cat is sleepy.
dixi, “cattus fessus est.” dixi cattum fessum esse.
b) "We should go," yelled Bruno. B) Bruno yelled that we should go.
"debemus exire," Bruno vocavit. debere nos exire Bruno vocavit.
c) "I saw that house," he said. C) He said that he had seen that house.
"illam domum vidi," ait. dixit se illam domum vidisse.
d) The guy thought, "he should drink more water." D) The guy thought that he should drink more water.
ille putavit, "iste plus aquae bibere debet." ille putavit istum plus aquae bibere debere.
e) The guy thought, "I should drink more water." E) The guy thought that he should drink more water.
ille putavit, "plus aquae bibere debeo." ille putavit se plus aquae bibere debere.
In the examples above you may have noticed that the "head verb" was frequently in the perfect tense, which makes sense because often reported actions are things that have already occurred. But you may see indirect statements used with head verbs in other tenses too. There are no set rules about which tenses for the infinitives must go with which head verb tenses, so translating the tenses in indirect statements is fairly straightforward, you can just follow the rules as outlined in the examples below:
Present infinitives = reported action at same time as head verb
dixi me canem sub arbore videre. I said that I saw the dog under the tree.
dico me canem sub arbore videre. I’m saying that I see the dog under the tree.
dicam me canem sub arbore videre. I will say that I see the dog under the tree.
Perfect infinitives = shift the reported action further in the past than the head verb
dixi me canem sub arbore vidisse. I said that I had seen the dog under the tree.
dico me canem sub arbore vidisse. I say that I saw the dog under the tree.
dicam me canem sub arbore vidisse. I’ll say that I saw the dog under the tree.
Future infinitives = the reported action will be further in the future than the head verb (note: in this example the “I” is female, so “visuram” agrees with a feminine “me”).
dixi me canem sub arbore visuram esse. I said that I’ll see the dog under the tree.
dico me canem sub arbore visuram esse. I say that I’ll see the dog under the tree.
dicam me canem sub arbore visuram esse. I’ll say that I’ll see the dog under the tree.
It is possible to overthink the way the tenses work here! Just take a deep breath and translate it bravely! They usually just make sense.