On the exceptionality of reported speech

Spronck and Nikitina (S&N) have taken on the task of defining a linguistic phenomenon that has managed to elude definition, despite playing a key role in many subfields of linguistics. In formal semantics in particular, speech reports have been at the center of attention from the very beginning (Frege, 1892). S&N’s endeavor presupposes that there is something worth defining, i.e. that reported speech is indeed a linguistic category of its own, not an arbitrary intersection of various other, larger linguistic categories such as clausal embedding and evidentiality. In this response I want to provide additional, semantic evidence for S&N’s claim that reported speech should be treated as a linguistic category.Spronck and Nikitina (S&N) have taken on the task of defining a linguistic phenomenon that has managed to elude definition, despite playing a key role in many subfields of linguistics. In formal semantics in particular, speech reports have been at the center of attention from the very beginning (Frege, 1892). S&N’s endeavor presupposes that there is something worth defining, i.e. that reported speech is indeed a linguistic category of its own, not an arbitrary intersection of various other, larger linguistic categories such as clausal embedding and evidentiality. In this response I want to provide additional, semantic evidence for S&N’s claim that reported speech should be treated as a linguistic category.