Backshift
From Hull AWE
Revision as of 12:55, 15 May 2008 by PeterWilson (Talk | contribs)
Backshift is a technical term in the study of grammar. It may have been coined by Professor Quirk's team at UCL: it appears in their Quirk 1972, but not yet (2008) in the OED in this sense:
"If there is (semantically) a shift into the past in the reporting clause, there is a corresponding shift into the past (or if necessary, further into the past) in the reported clause" [[Quirk, 1972, 786)
