Reported Speech Part 2: having done something
In this post we saw how these 3 'reporting verbs' are followed by 'verb + ing'.
- 'confess to'
- 'admit '
- 'deny'
Today we'll compare this with 'told' (Past Tense of 'tell').
Direct Speech: "I've eaten your cake."
Reported Speech: "He told me that he had eaten my cake".
There are 2 past actions in this sentence.
1. He ate the cake.
2. He told me.
So you need Past Perfect to show which action came first:
'He ate the cake and then he told me about it' just sounds weird.
You can replace 'told me' with a more precise word like 'confessed' or 'admitted' but this means that the Past Perfect 'had' changes to 'having' because these verbs are followed by 'ing'.
- He confessed to having eaten my cake.
- He admitted (to) having eaten my cake.
In fast speech, people don't stick to the 'rules' of Reported Speech.
A person would probably say:
"He said he ate my cake".
So don't worry too much about this rule!
'deny' /dɪˈnaɪ/
Notice that 'deny' follows the same pattern and is more likely to replace 'having stolen' with 'stealing':
He denied stealing my cake.
