求问：直接引语转化成间接引语的时态变化问题

汤包要求学

前几天在论坛里看到一个旧帖讨论关于直接引语转化成间接引语的时态变化，其基本原则是不用改变时态，例如：
直接引语变成间接引语时，从句时态无须改变的情况
1）当主句的谓语动词是一般现在时的时候，如：  
He always says, “I am tired out.” ——>He always says that he is tired out.
2）当主句的谓语动词是将来时的时候，如：  
He will say, “I’ll try my best to help you.” ——>He will say that he will try his best to help me.
3）当直接引语部分带有具体的过去时间状语时，如：  
He said, “I went to college in 1994.” ——>He told us that he went to college in 1994.
4）当直接引语中有以when, while引导的从句，表示过去的时间时，如：  
He said，“When I was a child, I usually played football after school.” ——>
He said that when he was a child, he usually played football after school.  
5）当直接引语是客观真理或自然现象时，如：  
Our teacher said to us, “Light travels faster than sound.” ——>
Our teacher told us that light travels faster than sound.
6）当引语是谚语、格言时，如：  
He said，“Practice makes perfect.” ——>He said that practice makes perfect.
7）当直接引语中有情态动词should, would, could, had better, would rather, might, must, ought to, used to, need时，如：  
例如：  The doctor said, “You'd better drink plenty of water.” ——>
The doctor said I'd better drink plenty of water.
He said, “She must be a teacher.”——> He said that she must be a teacher.
He said, “She ought to have arrived her office by now.”——>  
He said that she ought to have arrived her office by then.
The teacher said, “You needn't hand in your compositions today.”——>  
The teacher said we needn't/didn't need to/didn't have to hand in our compositions.


可是我在重温manhattan时，在Tense Sequence中， manhattan说：
Scientist: “The supercollider IS ready, it DID not COST too much, and it WILL PROVIDE
new insights into the workings of the universe."
如果我们用announced这样的过去式，你怎样写这句话？通常，我们一次性把时态往后推。
Report: The scientist ANNOUNCED that the supercollider WAS ready, that it HAD not COST too much, and that it WOULD PROVIDE new insights into the workings of the universe.

所以我的问题是，到底要不要改时态？manhattan中这句改变时态的原因是因为用了“announced"吗？
谢谢大家

汤包要求学

没有人顶啊，自己顶

AMBER513

顶楼主！               

AMBER513

Sequence of tenses
Suppose we have a sentence, a statement of fact, which has past & present & future in it.  For example,
P did X, does Y, and will do Z. 
Now, suppose that, whatever these facts are, they are important enough for someone else to announce them, or tell them, or think them, or believe them.  In fact, we might use any of the idioms of thinking and knowing or any of the [verb] + “that”-clause idioms here.
Someone else announced that P ____ X, _____Y, and _____ Z. 
This is called indirect speech.  The big question is: what tenses do we use when we change from a description of the events themselves to a spoken or thought “that”-clause in the past about the events?  In other words, what’s the right tense within indirect speech?  This subject is the sequence of tenses, and the rules are relatively simple.   What we sorta do is back everything up to a previous-time tense
a. the present tense real event becomes past: (does Y) becomes (did Y)
b. the past tense real event becomes past perfect: (did X) becomes (had done X)
c. the future tense real event — this is a tricky one.  You may thing future goes back to present or to future perfect, but neither of those are correct.  We actually use the subjunctive for a hypothetical future: (will do Z) becomes (would do Z).
d. anything progressive would stay progressive, following the above rules; for example, (was doing omega) becomes (had been doing omega)
Thus, our indirect speech sentence above would be
Someone else announced that P had done X, did Y, and would do Z. 
 

AMBER513

Summary
If you had any insights or realizations reading this, you may want to give the practice questions above a second look before reading the solutions.  If you have any further questions, please let us know in the comments section at the bottom.
1) The first verb, to operate, refers to a past event (in the 1990s), so that should be past perfect in indirect speech.  This is correct in (A) – (C).  The second verb, to become profitable, is also in the past (2006), so this also should be past perfect in indirect speech: only (A) has this correct. The final event, to continue to yield, refers to the future, so this should be the hypothetical future, “would continue to yield“, which (A) & (B) & (D) have correct.  All three verbs should remain in parallel: it is not correct to change some to participles, as (C) & (E) do.
The only possible answer is (A).
2) The first verb, to fashion, was a present-time action for the governor, and because the governor emphasized “at [this] moment”, we know it must be in the progressive.  The governor would have said “is fashioning” when we spoke, so in indirect speech, this becomes “was fashioning”. Only (C) has this correct.
The second verb, to deliver, was a future-time action for the governor, and he would have said, “will deliver”.  In indirect speech, this becomes “would deliver”.  Both (C) & (D) have this correct.
The only possible answer is (C).
3) Here, we have an interesting variant on indirect speech, a “that”-clause about belief.  Both of the first two verbs, to appear and to separate, refer to actions that occurred at the Creation of the World, presumably a past event for anyone speaking about it. In indirect speech, these both should be in the past perfect, “had appeared” and “had separated“. Only (D) has both of these.
The last verb, a form of the verb to be, describes a current condition of the world (at least in this ancient worldview), so this would have been a present tense verb to anyone speaking about it, and in indirect speech, present becomes past, so this should be “there was“, which is correct in both (D) & (E).
Choice (A) has the past “appeared” with the present perfect “has separated” for two events that presumably were simultaneous.  Similarly, choice (C) also mismatches the tenses, using the past perfect “had appeared” with the present perfect “has separated.”  These cannot be correct.
Choice (B) inexplicably has the past progressive for the verb ‘was separating,” even though there is no reason to emphasis the continuous nature of this past action.   Similarly, the hypothetical “would be” is not consistent with the rest of the logic: these ancient people belief something that they thought was really the case, not something hypothetical and speculative.    The “would be” would be true in a contrary-to-fact conditional statement: “If what these ancient people believed were true, then there would be another ocean …” This cannot be correct.
Choice (E) makes the strange choice of using the present perfect for “has appeared,” but then makes a huge mistake.  The GMAT does not like the structure “with” + [noun] + [participial phrase], and this is what this choice has.  This choice is incorrect.
The only possible answer is (D).