Topic 7 (session A) - The grammar of complex sentences > Text effects > Task D > our answer

Text effects of linking, listing and nesting

Task D - our answer

What we have here is a classic case of reported indirect speech. The speech reported is in a nested noun clause which is the object of the speech reporting verb 'declared'. This kind of structure is very common in the passage from Pride and Prejudice that we looked at in Topic 6, Authorial and text style. We saw in Task C that Of Mice and Men is an action novel. Pride and Prejudice, on the other hand, is a novel about perceptions and talk: what people think of others and what they say about them to their friends. So the structure that we see here is very common in Pride and Prejudice - part of its text style.

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