A verbum dicendi (Latin for "word of speaking" or "verb of speaking"), also called verb of utterance, is a word that expresses speech or introduces a quotation. English examples of verbs of speaking include say, utter, ask and rumble. Because a verbum dicendi ("verb of speaking") often introduces a quotation, it may grammaticalize into a quotative. The plural of verbum dicendi is verba dicendi. Complement of a verbum dicendi: direct and indirect speech A complement of a verbum dicendi can be direct or indirect speech. Direct speech is a single unit of linguistic object that is '"mentioned" rather than used.' In contrast, indirect speech is a proposition whose parts make semantic and syntactic contribution to the whole sentence just like parts of the matrix clause (i.e. the main clause/sentence, as opposed to an embedded clause). Cross-linguistically, there are syntactic differences between direct and indirect speech, which include verbatimness, interpretations of deictic expressions, tense, presence or absence of complementizers, and syntactic opacity. The complement clause may or may not be verbatim If a complement of a verbum dicendi is direct speech, it is presented as a faithful report of what the original speaker exactly said. In the following examples, the first means that "I will go to Tokyo" was the exact sentence that John uttered. In the second, on the other hand, John might have uttered a different sentence, for example, "I'll spend my vacation in Tokyo."a. John said (to me): "I will go to Tokyo"b. John said (to me) that he would go to Tokyo. Indexicals in the complement clause may or may not be utterance-bound If a complement of a verbum dicendi is direct speech, deictic expressions in the complement are interpreted with respect to the context in which the original sentence was uttered. In (2)a, the embedded clause is direct speech; the first person pronoun I and the second person pronoun you in "Ii will give youj a hand" respectively refer to the utterer and the addressee in the context in which this quoted speech was uttered. In contrast, if the embedded clause is indirect speech, all deictic expressions in the sentence are interpreted in the context in which the matrix clause is uttered. In (2)b, the embedded clause is indirect speech, so all the occurrences of the first person pronoun me and the second person pronoun you in the sentence respectively refer to the utterer and the