ABSTRACT
As you can see, in Lithuanian reported speech, in other words, what someone is reported to have said, is conveyed somewhat differently from in English. The tenses of the verbs, that is, the verb which reports and that or those which convey what is reported, are not in accord one with each other, but convey the real times of the events. The sentence above translates into English as 'She said that she simply couldn't find you', whereas what she actually said was: 'I simply can't find him'. This use of the present tense is retained in Lithuanian - as you can see, however, Lithuanian doesn't go the whole hog, in that the pronouns appropriate to the indirect speech are retained. Compare the following:
Work out what the above sentences mean in English (Hint: you should note that the tense of at least the reported speech in the right-hand column differs in Lithuanian and English).
