Speech Variance Between Direct and Indirect Speech in The Holy Qur'an

Notes and Preliminary Comments on Reporting Speech in Arabic

Dr. Omar Yousef Okasha

The present study aims the most to make researchers working on the grammatical Arabic theory pay more attention to the necessity of establishing a new section in Arabic grammar "Reporting Speech". This section lacks the proper studies conducted by Arabic grammar researchers, while other languages grammars have studied it.

The present study contends the major verb of speech in Arabic "qaala قالَ" is employed to report "raw speech-direct speech". The study calls for adopting the terminologies "<Al-Hikaayah الحِكاية and Al-<Ikbaar الإخبار", the first indicates reporting speech by keeping the words as they were said by the speaker, while the second indicates reporting speech while changing it.

After that, the study attempts answering the following question: Is "qaala قالَ" employed in the Holy Quran to report speech indirectly?

(keywords: reported speech, verb of speech, direct, indirect)