noun
mass nounGrammarThe changing of a present tense in direct speech to a past tense in reported speech (or a past tense to pluperfect).
‘We now have fine tuned our secondary set-up and have a solid backshift in all conditions.’- ‘If the sentence starts in the past, there is often backshift of tenses in Reported speech.’
- ‘None of these items refer to eternal truths, and still the writers do not use backshift.’
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