The literature on reported speech and thought contains various confusing grammatical labels, such as “semi-direct” or “semi-indirect” speech, or claims that a language lacks indirect speech. Such labels seem to be motivated by languagespecific tweaking of various deictic signals, and may not be helpful as a comparative typological concept. It is the merit of Spronck and Nikitina’s (S&N) target article to argue for reported speech as “a coherent, cross-linguistically regular phenomenon that displays features that cannot be derived from any other construction type”. I would like to offer some nuance to their claim without adding to the prolific terminology. One of the defining features of homo sapiens is that we are able to reflect on our own or conspecifics’ consciousness. Our cognition is based on primary emotions, which we share with many other species, that are instrumental for our survival as individual organisms (Damasio 1999, 2010). This universal conceptual level allows us to differentiate ‘self’ versus ‘other’ and it is on this bedrock of emotions and cognition that our species has been able to develop language and languages, with the key properties as defined in Hockett (1958: 574). And language allows us to not only express our own thoughts, feelings, intentions, etc., but also to represent those of others, that is, through reported speech constructions, as defined by the claim (3) and refined definition (31) in S&N’s paper. I would like to qualify their claim that “reported speech constitutes a syntactic class in its own right”. Instead of taking the whole of reported speech as one syntactic class, it seems better to distinguish two major constructional

中文翻译：

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报价构成递归语

关于报告的言论和思想的文献包含各种令人困惑的语法标签，例如“半直接”或“半间接”语音，或声称一种语言缺乏间接语音。这样的标签似乎是由各种专用信号的特定于语言的调整所激发的，可能无法作为比较类型学概念使用。Spronck和Nikitina（S＆N）的目标文章的优点是将报告的语音辩解为“一种连贯的，跨语言的常规现象，显示出无法从任何其他构造类型中得出的特征”。我想在不增加多产用语的情况下对他们的主张提供一些细微差别。智人的定义性特征之一是我们能够反思自己或特定物种的意识。我们的认知是基于主要情感，我们与许多其他物种共有，这对于我们作为个体生物的生存至关重要（Damasio 1999，2010）。这种普遍的概念水平使我们能够区分“自我”与“其他”，正是在这种情感和认知的基石上，我们的物种得以发展出一种或多种语言，并具有Hockett（1958：574）定义的关键特性。 。语言使我们不仅可以表达自己的思想，感觉，意图等，而且可以代表他人的思想，感觉，意图等，即通过报告的语音结构（如权利要求（3）和细化的定义（31）中的定义）来表示。 S＆N的论文。我想证明他们的主张：“报告的言论本身就构成了一个句法课”。与其将整个报告的演讲作为一个句法课，