Select the option that expresses the given sentence in indirect speech.
“Alas, I have broken my brother’s watch!” said he.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The correct answer is Option 2 i.e. He exclaimed with sorrow that he had broken his brother’s watch.
The given sentence is an exclamatory sentence, to convert this sentence into indirect speech we need to follow the following points:
- Inverted commas will get omitted and 'that' will be used.
- The reporting verb said is changed to exclaimed with sorrow as the given sentence talks about an unfortunate incident.
- In the reporting speech, the verb 'have broken' is in the present perfect tense, will change to past perfect tense i.e. 'had broken'.
- Further, the pronoun 'I' will be changed into the pronoun 'he' and the pronoun 'my' will be changed to 'his'.
After following these steps, we got the indirect speech as: He exclaimed with sorrow that he had broken his brother’s watch.
Hence, the correct answer is Option 2 i.e. He exclaimed with sorrow that he had broken his brother’s watch.