In English
In English, verba dicendi such as say and think are used to report speech and thought processes. [3]
(1)a. If you touched a one they would say ‘wey you’re on’. (UK) b. And I thought ‘Well we need some more popcorn’. (US) [3] Such examples are prototypical, but many variants exist within an open class of manner-of-speaking verbs, such as ask, shout, scream, wonder, yell, holler, bellow, grunt, mumble, mutter, etc. These may be considered semantically more specific, implying a clause type (as in ask) or indicating the intensity or prosody of the reported material (e.g. shout, mutter).
Quotation indicates to a listener that a message originated from a different voice, and/or at a different time than the present. An utterance like “Jim said ‘I love you’” reports at the present moment that Jim said “I love you” at some time in the past. Thus, there are two distinct active voices: that of the narrator and that of the reportee. [3] Written English often employs manner-of-speaking verbs or verba dicendi in conjunction with quotation marks to demarcate the quoted content. Speakers use more subtle phonetic and prosodic cues like intonation, rhythm, and mimesis to indicate reported speech.
Properties
There are numerous syntactically and semantically relevant properties of verba dicendi and manner-of-speaking verbs, several of which are highlighted below:
i. They are so-called Activity Verbs. They may occur in progressive and imperative forms, among other tests:
(2)a. He was shouting obscenities. b. Yell to George about the new quota. c. What John did was lisp French to Mary. [4] ii. The subject of verba dicendi is normally sentient:
(3)a. My father howled for me to pick up the chair. b. *My desk howled for me to pick up the chair. [4] However, it is possible, at least colloquially, to assign the subject role of some verba dicendi to abstracta. An expression like "When you're late, it says you don't care" could be one such example.
iii. Verba dicendi may have an indirect object, which may be marked by to and which is also normally sentient:
(4)a. Scream ‘Up the Queen’ (to the first person who passes) b. *She will howl 'O my stars and garters' to the essence of friendship [4] iv. Manner-of-speaking verbs may have a direct object, which may be a noun describing the speech act itself, a desentential complement (that-clause, indirect question or infinitive), or a direct quotation:
(5)a. Hoffman will probably mutter a foul oath. b. Martin shrieked that there were cockroaches in the caviar. c. Regrettably, someone mumbled, “I suspect poison.” [4] Further, the direct object of some manner-of-speaking verbs may be deleted, resulting in a sentence that does not indicate an act of communication, but rather a description of the sound made:
d. My companion shrieked. [4] Other verba dicendi do not permit this, however. Say, ask, tell, for instance, cannot occur freely without an object:
e. *Said John [5] Speak may occur without an object. In fact, its occurrence with an object is restricted. A that-clause, for example, is ungrammatical:
f. Margaret spoke (to me) g. *Margaret spoke that there were cockroaches in the caviar [4] v. Some manner-of-speaking verbs may occur with directional adverbials, which cannot co-occur with indirect objects:
(6)a. He bellowed at us (*to Sam) [4] Other verba dicendi cannot occur in at constructions:
b. *She {said/remarked/declared} (something) at me [4] vi. Some manner-of-speaking verbs may have a nominal (noun) counterpart which sounds the same, but which has no communicative content, such as mutter, bellow, shriek, whine and whisper. Notice that other verba dicendi do not have these homophonous nouns (e.g. speak/speech, tell/tale, declare/declaration). [4] There are many such observations. Another property of verbs of speaking is the lack of so-called factivity effect; in other words, the speaker is not required to actually believe what they are saying. [6] This has implications for the truth conditions of quotative constructions:
(7) Mary says that Paul is her friend.
Mary's statement may be false, though it may be true that she actually said it. In fact, she may even believe it to be false. However, whether or not believing is part of speaking has been debated for some time. [6]
Syntax
The syntax of quotation and verba dicendi appears at first glance to be a straightforward case of transitivity, in which the quoted material is interpreted as a direct object. In a case like
(8) Jim said “I love you” [3] 
the traditionally held analysis takes the reported clause “I love you” to be the complement of say. Thus the quote is termed an NP (noun phrase) and introduced as a direct object.
This analysis is supported by some of the typical syntactic tools for testing direct objects, such as moving into the focus of a question and clefting. [3] However, constituency, movement and replacement tests show that the quotative clause does not behave like a normal transitive construction. For example, clefting and passivization of these forms give marked (ungrammatical, or strange at least) results:
(9)a. ?“I’ll call you” was said by Pat cf. The cat was held by Pat b. ?What Pat did with “I’ll call you” was say it cf. What Pat did with the cat was hold it [7] Quotation may also be less restricted than ordinary transitive verbs. They may occur parenthetically, unlike other verbs:
(10)a. “I’ll call you” Pat said “and I hope you answer” cf. ?The cat Pat held and a book b. “I” Pat said “will call you and I hope you answer” cf. *The Pat held cat and a book [7] [ dubious ]
Another issue is that manner-of-speaking verbs are not always obligatorily transitive. Verbs like think, laugh, scream, yell, whisper may be intransitive. [7] A different model has been proposed, which does not rely on transitivity, but rather an asymmetrical construction containing a reporting clause (head) and an independent reported clause. [7] Note that the asymmetry arises from the fact that the reporting clause is dependent on the quoted content for grammaticality, while the reverse is not true.
(11)a.*I said b.“I love you”
In this model, the dependent clause has a site of elaboration (e-site) which is filled by the independent clause:
HEAD[Pat said e-site] COMPLEMENT[“I’ll call you”] HEAD[Pat thought e-site] COMPLEMENT[“I’ll call you”] HEAD[Pat was like e-site] COMPLEMENT[“I’ll call you”] [7] Direct/indirect quotation
Direct quotation is reported from the perspective of the experiencer:
(12) He said “I am leaving now” [3] However, indirect quotation is often paraphrased, and reported by a narrator from the perspective of the reportee. Verbs like ask and tell are frequently associated with indirect speech. English indirect quotation also shows a sequence-of-tense effect: a past tense reporting verb requires a "back-shift" in verb tense within the indirect quote itself [3]
(13)a. He said "I am leaving now" b. He said (that) he was leaving immediately [3] Indirect quotation is, in theory, syntactically constrained and requires that the quoted content form a subordinate clause under the CP node. [3] However, what is heard in speech does not necessarily conform to theory. The complementizer that, though considered to be a marker of indirect quotation, is not obligatory and is often omitted. Further, it can (and does) occur with direct quotes in some dialects of English (e.g. Hong Kong, Indian). [7] Verbs of speaking often employ the Conversational Historical Present tense, whereby actions in the past are referred to with present-tense morphology. This is considered to add immediacy or authority to the discourse. [3] However, it also illustrates the difficulty in differentiating direct and indirect quotation. [3]
(14) So uh ... this lady says ... uh this uh Bert (‘)His son’ll make them. He’s an electrician(‘) [3] Inverted constructions
Sentences with verba dicendi for direct quotation may use the somewhat antiquated verb-first (V2) order of English syntax. Inversion of this type with verbs of speaking or thinking frequently occurs in written English, though rarely in spoken English. It is also possible to invert the clause without changing subject-verb order. This is not possible with regular English transitives:
(15)a. “No no no” said Harry b. “You’re not drunk” she says cf. *The cat held Pat (where Pat did the holding) [7] There are several restrictions, however. For example, quantifiers may occur to the right of the subject in a non-inverted quotative sentence, but not in an inverted sentence. They can, however, occur to the immediate left of the subject in an inverted sentence:
(16)a.”We must do this again”, the guests all declared to Tony b.”We must do this again”, declared all the guests to Tony c.*”We must do this again”, declared the guests all to Tony [5] Inversion and negation with verba dicendi may co-occur only if the reporting clause itself is not inverted:
(17)a.“Let’s eat”, said John just once b.“Let’s eat”, John didn't just say once c.*”Let’s eat”, said not John just once d.*”Let’s eat”, not said John just once [5] Other constraints involve subject position, DP direct objects, and movement, among others.
Grammaticalization
Grammaticalization is the attribution of grammatical character to a previously independent, autonomous word. [7] There is significant cross-linguistic evidence of verba dicendi grammaticalizing into functional syntactic categories. For instance, in some African and Asian languages, these verbs may grammaticalize into a complementizer. [7] In other East African languages, they may become markers of Tense-Aspect-Mood (TAM). [7] In English, the verb say in particular has also developed the function of a comment clause:
(18)a. Say there actually were vultures on his tail b. What say he does answer? c. Buy a big bottle – say about 250 mils d. If we ran out of flour or sugar, say, we would gather up a few eggs and take them to Mr. Nichols's general store e.“Say, isn’t that–” Lance started, but Buck answered before the question was even asked f.“Say, that’s our City,” bubbles Dolores g. Jump, I say, and be done with it [8] In these examples, the verb say fulfils many roles. In the first two examples (a & b), it means ‘suppose', or 'assume.’ In the third and fourth examples (c & d) the meaning of say could be paraphrased as 'for example', or 'approximately.' Example (e) uses say as an imperative introducing a question and connotes 'tell me/us.' Say may also function as an interjection to either focus attention on the speaker or to convey some emotional state such as surprise, regret, disbelief, etc. [8] Finally, example (f) uses say in an emphatic, often imperative way. This function dates from the (early) Middle English period [7]
Emergence of innovative forms: go, be all, be like
In addition to basic verba dicendi and manner of speaking verbs, other forms are frequently used in spoken English. What sets these apart is that they are not, semantically speaking, reporting verbs at all. Such forms include be like, be all, and go.
(19)a. Pat was like “I’ll call you.” [7] b. [...]and then my sister’s all “excuse me would you mind if I gave you, if I want your autograph” and she’s like “oh sure, no problem.” c. And he goes “yeah” and looks and you can tell maybe he thinks he's got the wrong address[...] [9]
These forms, particularly be like, have captured the attention of much linguistic study and documentation. Some research has addressed the syntax of these forms in quotation, which is highly problematic. For example, a verbum dicendi like say may refer to a previously quoted clause with it. However, this is not possible with these innovative forms:
(20)a. “I don’t know if he heard it, but I know I definitely said it b. *I’m like it c. *She was all it d. *I went it [10] Notice that these forms also don’t behave as basic verba dicendi in many other ways. Clefting, for example, produces ungrammatical forms like
(21)a. *That’s nice was gone by me b. *Um, yah, I know, but there’s going to be wine there was been all by her [10] They also can’t participate in inverted constructions like other manner-of-speaking verbs:
(22)a. *“Go home”, he was like b. *“I’m leaving”, was all John
Several other issues concerning these forms are the topic of much current study, including their diachrony, or change in use over time. Go, for example, dates as far back as the eighteenth century, in contexts like go bang, go crack, go crash, etc. [3] Research on these forms has also shown that be like in particular is associated with young people. However, this assumption is questioned on the basis of more recent findings which suggest that it is used by older speakers as well. [9] It has also been largely attributed to female speakers, especially white females in California (Valley Girls). However, it is regularly used by speakers of both sexes, and in dialects of English outside of the US, including Canada and the UK. [10] This is a topic of a great deal of research in current syntax and sociolinguistics.
