solitaryreaper wrote:Hi Experts!

This is my first post on BTG forum. I need some clarity regarding few sentences on reported speech where I'm having a hard time at pin-pointing the permissible usage of various tenses.


Please let me know which ones of the following are correct/incorrect (and why):

All of them are correctly constructed, at least in terms of tenses used. While in version 3 there is no logical referent for they, all of the other changes just change the meaning. So only if the meaning a version conveys were to not make sense in a particular context would the version be incorrect.

1)Trans World Entertainment Corporation announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed.

Trans world announced that sales are poor and that stores will be closed. - While I guess have been poor might be better than are poor, one could make the case that this version is ok.

2)Yesterday, Trans World Entertainment Corporation announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores were poor, they will be closed.

Now the sales were poor. So they were poor rather than are poor. The change is merely from discussing current sales to past sales.

3)Yesterday,Trans World Entertainment Corporation announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores were poor, they are closing them.

While there is no logical referent for they, the tenses in this version work. The meaning of this one is that the closing is already in progress.

4)Trans World Entertainment Corporation announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores have been poor, they will be closed.

have been poor is solid.

5)Trans World Entertainment Corporation announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores were poor, they would be closed.

This used of the future in the past form would would make sense in certain contexts. Check out this example.

Trans World Entertainment Corporation announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores were poor, they would be closed. Then, Trans World was bought out by First Global, and so the store closing plans were shelved.

In this context the making of the announcement was in the past and the statement made was the case in the past, but is not the case now. So the future in the past is the tense to use.

6)Trans World Entertainment Corporation announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed.

Same as version 1.

For more insights, see the following.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questi ... -will-have