📅 Created: 11 Jun, 2023
🔄 Updated: 09 Sep, 2025

Which one is the correct narration? "Why have you beaten my dog"? he said to me. ?

Explanation

The question involves transforming a direct speech into indirect narration. The original sentence is a question where someone expresses concern about their dog's well-being after an action involving beating.

In indirect speech, the key changes include converting the question format and adjusting the verb tenses appropriately. The phrase "Why have you beaten my dog?" suggests a current relevance to the action, prompting the use of the past perfect tense "had beaten" when converting to indirect narration, reflecting that the action occurred before the time of speaking.

Let’s analyze the options:

- Option A ("He demanded me why had I beaten his dog") incorrectly uses "had I beaten," which is not suitable for indirect questions.

- Option B ("He asked me why I have had beaten his dog...") also improperly combines the perfect tense.

- Option C ("He demanded of me why I had beaten his dog") uses "demanded" instead of "asked," making the tone harsher and potentially changing the meaning.

- Option D ("He asked me why I had beaten his dog") accurately captures the essence of the question and uses the correct tense, making it the best choice.

Thus, option D effectively preserves the original intent and tense necessary for proper indirect narration.