Question

Choose the correct option to complete the sentence in indirect speech:
Robin Hood said, "I want justice for the weak."
Robin Hood said that ____ justice for the weak.
a) I wanted
b) He wants
c) He wanted
d) He would want

Answer 1

Hint: Reported speech is a form of speech used to express what another has said. It often involves a change intense. For example-
If we were to change "Fred says "I will do the housework"." In reported speech, it would become "Fred said that he would do the housework."

Complete answer:
In the given question, the given sentence is a statement.
According to the rules of indirect speech, if the reporting verb is present in the past tense, then the reported verb’s tense shall be change to its corresponding past tense form.
In the given sentence, ‘said’ is the reporting verb, which is in past tense form. Thus, the reported verb shall also change into its past tense form.

Moreover, in reported speech, in this sentence, the first person pronoun is changed to the person of the speaker.
Let us thus analyze the options given to us in this question:
Option (a.), 'I wanted', does not change the first-person pronoun to the third person pronoun ‘he’.
Therefore, option (a.) is incorrect.

Option (b.), ‘He wants', refers to the reported verb in the present tense.
Therefore, option (b.) is incorrect as the reported verb is supposed to be in past tense.

Option (c.), ‘He wanted', refers to the reported verb in the past tense and the pronoun in third person.
Therefore, option (c.) is correct.

Option (d.), ‘He would want', does not refer to the reported verb in past tense.
Therefore, option (d.) is incorrect.

Hence option (c) is correct.

Note: In this question, remember that the first statement in the question, ‘Robin Hood said, "I want justice for the weak."’, is given in direct speech. The writing of speech, using the exact words of the speaker, usually between quotation marks, is called direct speech.