Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

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539 Glossary for any unfamiliar terms

Speech representation | 821

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Checking, recapping and summarising

501c

In spoken language, indirect reported speech can serve as a memory or

comprehension check. The most frequent forms are did you say and you say:

Did you say, Maggie, you’d read something by Lessing before?

A: Have you used that twice, did you say?

B: I’ve sort of used it twice, yeah.

A: Mrs Collett is a brilliant headteacher.

B: You say there’s 36 people in your class?

A: Yeah.

Progressive reporting verbs are common when speakers are checking agreement

or mutual understanding of what is or was said:

If 

you’re saying we should do the whole thing, it’ll take six months.

I think 

we were saying at this point that there’d be no need to repeat it.

Speakers often recap or produce summaries of what was said, or repeat earlier

speech. Simple and progressive forms of reporting verbs may occur:

[Margaret, called away temporarily from an informal business meeting,

returns]

We were just saying, Margaret, we haven’t left enough time to revise all the

components.

(just is particularly common with this type of report)

Like we said yesterday, it’s all a bit hypothetical.

(or, more formally: As we said yesterday, …)