verb of saying itta: Gloss: TOP=Topic Marker DAT=Dative NOM=Nominative COM=complementizer {| class="wikitable" |- | ゆき || は || あなた || には || 彼女 || が || 好き || と || 言った。 |- | Yuki || wa || anata|| ni wa || kanocho || ga || suki || to || itta. |- | Yuki|| TOP || you || DAT || her || NOM || like || COM || said |- | colspan=9|"Yuki said that you liked her." |} Verbs of saying (known as quotative verbs when used to introduce quotations) and quotative particles are used as quotative markers, which signal quotations in utterances. Quotative evidentials are also used in some languages to indicate quoted speech (e.g. Cusco Quechua spoken in Peru, Nanti spoken in lowland southeastern Peru, Laal spoken in Chad). Quotative markers Quotative markers are used to mark a section of an utterance as quoted speech (i.e. a quotation). In oral speech, quotative markers act as quotation marks and often include a verb of saying (e.g. say). A quotative marker usually appears either before or after the reported speech or thought, depending on the syntax of the language. For example, compare the following languages: English In English, the quotative verb say occurs before the quotation: a. She said “Will you answer the phone, will you answer the phone” In American English, verbs such as be like, go, and be all are non-standard quotatives that are commonly used in colloquial speech. They are observed in the speech of young people not only in American English, but in other varieties of English as well (e.g. be like in New Zealand English, be like and go in Glasgow English). Though not semantically considered verbs of saying, they are used to convey the same meaning as such verbs. Like say, be like, go, and be all occur before the quotation: b. I'm like "I'm so sorry you had to wait" c. She went "Who are you going with?" d. He's all "Okay, come with me come with me" In conversational speech, the use of say and be like occurs at about the same frequency, though say tends to be used in more formal contexts (e.g. office hours between professors and students) and be like tends to occur in more informal contexts (e.g. a conversation between two young people). In African American Vernacular English, talkin' 'bout occurs as a verb of quotation, introducing both direct