Reported Speech and Sequence of Mood

You already know the core of reported speech from B1: relay what someone said in an að-clause and the verb goes subjunctive. This page assembles the whole system an advanced speaker controls: the sequence of mood (present matrix → present subjunctive; past matrix → past subjunctive), the backshift that pushes a present-tense original into the past subjunctive, the deictic adjustments (here→there, today→that day, now→then) that English also makes, and the patterns for reported questions and reported commands. The organising insight is that Icelandic's backshift lands not in a plain past indicative — as English's does — but in the past subjunctive, so a single form like væri carries both pastness and reportedness. (For the introductory trigger, see verbs/subjunctive-reported-speech; for the deep principle behind mood selection, complex/subjunctive-deep.)

Sequence of mood: matching the embedded mood to the matrix tense

"Sequence of mood" is the rule that ties the embedded subjunctive's tense to the tense of the reporting verb. Two cases:

• Present matrix → present subjunctive. When the reporting verb is present (segir, heldur, spyr, vonar), the reported clause takes the present subjunctive (sé, komi, hafi, fari).
• Past matrix → past subjunctive (backshift). When the reporting verb is past (sagði, hélt, spurði, vonaði), the reported clause backshifts to the past subjunctive (væri, kæmi, hefði, færi, yrði).

The mechanism is mechanical and reliable: look at the matrix verb, and the embedded subjunctive's tense follows. If your matrix is past but your embedded verb is still present subjunctive, the backshift has been skipped.

The backshift, and why it's to the past SUBJUNCTIVE

This is the single most important — and most counter-intuitive-for-English — point. English also backshifts: "She is tired" → "She said she was tired", "is" → "was". But English lands in a plain past indicative (was). Icelandic lands in the past subjunctive (væri), not the past indicative (var).

Why? Because the embedded form is doing two jobs at once. It must encode pastness (sequence of tenses, like English) and reportedness (the mood that flags "this is her claim, not my assertion"). English has only the tense backshift to deploy, so was carries the pastness and the reportedness goes unmarked. Icelandic has both tools, and it uses both — folded into a single form. Væri is simultaneously "past" (relative to the reporting) and "subjunctive" (reported). One word, two meanings.

That is why *hún sagði að hún var þreytt (indicative var) is wrong for neutral reporting: var marks pastness but fails to mark reportedness. The whole point of the construction is the mood, and the past subjunctive is where pastness and mood meet. (The one exception is the deliberate indicative of endorsement — segir að … er "and I vouch for it" — covered in complex/subjunctive-deep.)

Already-past originals: backshift to the pluperfect subjunctive

If the original was already in the past, the backshift goes one step deeper, to the pluperfect subjunctive (hefði + supine) — exactly as English shifts "I saw it" → "she said she had seen it".

Deictic shift: pronouns, place, and time

Reporting moves the words out of the original speaker's here-and-now into yours, so deictics — words anchored to the speaker, place, and time of utterance — must be re-anchored. English does this too ("I'll come here today" → "she said she'd go there that day"), so the concept transfers; you mainly need the Icelandic equivalents.

The pronoun shift interacts with the reflexive sig: when the embedded subject co-refers with the reporting subject, Icelandic often uses long-distance sig — Jón sagði að María elskaði sig "Jón said María loved him (Jón)" — a point that the subjunctive licenses and that English cannot replicate. (See complex/binding-sig.)

Reported questions: hvort and wh-words

An indirect question keeps the same sequence of mood. A yes/no question becomes a hvort "whether" clause; a wh-question keeps its wh-word (hvar, hvenær, af hverju, hver). Crucially, the embedded clause uses subordinate order (no V2 inversion), so the subject follows the wh-word/hvort — unlike a direct question.

Compare the direct question Hvenær komum við heim? (V2, verb second) with the reported hvenær við komum heim (subordinate, subject second). Forgetting to undo the inversion is a frequent slip.

Reported commands: að + subjunctive, or the infinitive

A reported command has two standard renderings, depending on the matrix verb:

1. Verb of ordering/asking + object + að

   • infinitive.
   With biðja "ask", skipa "order", segja (e-m) að "tell (sb) to", the command becomes an infinitive construction: hann bað mig að koma "he asked me to come". This is the everyday pattern and maps neatly onto English "asked me to come".

2. að + subjunctive clause. Alternatively (and after some verbs), the command appears as a full að-clause in the subjunctive: hann sagði að ég kæmi / hann skipaði svo fyrir að allir færu.

The infinitive pattern carries no tense of its own, so no backshift question arises; the að + subjunctive pattern follows the normal sequence of mood (past matrix → past subjunctive).

Why English speakers get half of this right

English speakers reliably do three of the four operations and miss the fourth. They backshift the tense (was, had seen), they shift the deictics (there, that day), and they handle reported commands with the infinitive ("asked me to come") — all of which transfer. What they miss is the mood: they land in the past indicative (var, sá) instead of the past subjunctive (væri, hefði séð), because their own grammar has no live mood to transfer. The fix is to train the pairing as one reflex: not "shift to the past", but "shift to the past subjunctive" — er → væri, kemur → kæmi, sá → hefði séð. And in reported questions, remember to also undo the V2 inversion that the direct question had.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Sequence of mood: present matrix → present subjunctive (segir að … sé); past matrix → past subjunctive (sagði að … væri). The embedded tense tracks the matrix tense.
• The backshift lands in the past subjunctive, not the past indicative — because the form must encode both pastness and reportedness in one word: er → væri, kemur → kæmi, and an already-past original → pluperfect subjunctive hefði séð.
• Deictics shift to your here-and-now: hér → þar, hingað → þangað, núna → þá, í dag → þann dag, í gær → daginn áður, á morgun → daginn eftir — the concept transfers from English; learn the Icelandic words.
• Reported questions use hvort "whether" or a wh-word, with subordinate order (subject after the wh-word, no V2 inversion) and the same sequence of mood.
• Reported commands use either biðja/skipa
  • object + að
    • infinitive (bað mig að koma) or að
      • subjunctive (sagði að ég kæmi).
• English speakers backshift tense, shift deictics, and use the command infinitive correctly — but miss the mood; drill er → væri as one move, and undo the V2 inversion in reported questions.