Indirect Statments
Indirect Statements are thoughts, ideas, and sentences that are related by someone. Indirect statements always follow "head" verbs which usually express an idea of "thinking", "feeling", "saying", or "perceiving". Indirect speech is speech that could have been a quote if spoken directly, if someone is relaying the quote instead of stating it outright then it is considered an indirect statemnt.
Example Head Verbs:
I think that
I know that
I say that
I hear that
I see that
I recall that
I smell that
The Word "That"
Notice that each of the head verbs uses "that". The word "that" is used in English to show that a statement is indirect, but the word that does not have a Latin equivalent to explicitely include the word "that" in the sentence.
Key Components
Indirect statments have two key components that identify them in Latin text. The first is that the subject of the indirect statement needs to be in the accusative case, and the second is that the main verb of the indirect statement needs to be a verb in the infinitive form.
Indirect Statement Example
Michael Caeciliō dīxīt murum esse rubrum.
Michael said to Caecilius that the wall is red.
In this sentence the head verb dīxīt starts the indirect statement with the accusative subject being murum and the infinitive main verb being esse. You can see in this example that Michael is saying something to Caecilius but since the quote is not being spoken directly (in quotes), it is expressed not as a quote but as an indirect statement.