What is Said: A Theory of Indirect Speech Reports

The notion of what someone says is, perhaps surprisingly, somewhat less clear than we might be entitled to expect. Suppose that I utter to my class the sentence 'I want you to write a paper reconciling the things Russell claims about propositions in The Philosophy of Mathematics for next week'. A student who was unable to get up in time for class that day asks another what I said about the assignment. Several replies are in the offing. One, an oratio recta or direct speech report, is 'He sa...