Reported Speech

Indirect Discourse (‘Oratio Obliqua’). Latin uses a system of infinitives to represent action in reported speech. The verb of the reported statement is represented by an infinitive, and the subject of the original verb stands in the accusative case, construed as the subject of the infinitive phrase. (English uses this construction to a limited extent after verbs of thinking or believing: “We believe him to be mistaken”, for an original “He is mistaken”.)

To support this idiom, Latin uses different aspects of the infinitive to represent original verbal tense; infinitives also have voice, active or passive. The three aspects are imperfective, perfective and prospective, which correspond to present, past and future tenses of the conjugated verb, respectively. Note that any of the three past tenses (imperfect, perfect, pluperfect) must be represented by the so-called perfect infinitive. Represented schematically, the system appears thus:

The present infinitive represents action contemporaneous with that of the principal verb; the perfect infinitive represents action anterior to the action of the principal verb; the future infinitive represents action posterior to that of the principal verb.

The future passive infinitive is largely a notional form devised by grammarians, not used in actual Latin (literally vīsūrum īrī means “to be (being) gone to see”; here vīsūrum is a supine expressing purpose). In its place are used various periphrases with subjunctive clauses: credō eventūrum esse ut servātūrus sit = “I believe it will turn out that he will be saved.”