The teacher said, "The sun rises in the east."

[Tait-ka]

The teacher said, "The sun rises in the east."

The above sentence is from this website:

Direct and Indirect Speech of Universal Truth, Habitual Action, Historical Event/Fact With Examples | Reported Speech Habitual Actions – The New-day Learning

thenewdaylearning.com

The website says:

"We know that the reported statement changes according to the tense of the reporting verb in the indirect speech.
But in this case, the reported speech “The sun rises in the east” won’t change though the reporting verb ‘said’ is in the past.

But Why?

It happens because, the statement is a description of a natural incident, and so, it is universally true. It means, you can never alter the speech as you can’t alter the natural incident.

You cannot say that the sun rose in the east. If you say this you‘ll mean that the sun rose in the east today and often, it rises in other directions. But it has been rising in the east from millions of years ago and will continue to do so millions of years after."

I have some questions.
1. Do you agree with the website that we can't change the sentence to reported speech like "The teacher said that the sun rose in the east."?

2. If the first part uses some pronoun like "us" or any other pronoun, like this:
The teacher said to us, "The sun rises in the east."

Will then you use backshifted form or non backshifted form in the reported speech? I mean to say that whether you'll say
The teacher said to us that the sun rises in the east.
OR
The teacher said to us that the sun rose in the east.
?

 

[5jj]

1. Do you agree with the website that we can't change the sentence to reported speech like "The teacher said that the sun rose in the east."?

No. We can backshift, but we normally don't.

2. If the first part uses some pronoun like "us" or any other pronoun, like this:
The teacher said to us, "The sun rises in the east."

The teacher told us would be more natural than The teacher said to us.

Will then you use backshifted form or non backshifted form in the reported speech?

We would not normally backshift.

 

[Tait-ka]

We would not normally backshift.

x) The teacher said to us that the sun rises in the east.
y) The teacher told us that the sun rises in the east.


Would you use y?

 

[emsr2d2]

x) The teacher said to us that the sun rises in the east.
y) The teacher told us that the sun rises in the east.

Would you use y?

I would.