in at constructions: b. *She {said/remarked/declared} (something) at me vi. Some manner-of-speaking verbs may have a nominal (noun) counterpart which sounds the same, but which has no communicative content, such as mutter, bellow, shriek, whine and whisper. Notice that other verba dicendi do not have these homophonous nouns (e.g. speak/speech, tell/tale, declare/declaration). There are many such observations. Another property of verbs of speaking is the lack of so-called factivity effect; in other words, the speaker is not required to actually believe what they are saying. This has implications for the truth conditions of quotative constructions: (7) Mary says that Paul is her friend. Mary's statement may be false, though it may be true that she actually said it. In fact, she may even believe it to be false. However, whether or not believing is part of speaking has been debated for some time. Syntax The syntax of quotation and verba dicendi appears at first glance to be a straightforward case of transitivity, in which the quoted material is interpreted as a direct object. In a case like (8) Jim said “I love you” the traditionally held analysis takes the reported clause “I love you” to be the complement of say. Thus the quote is termed an NP (noun phrase) and introduced as a direct object. This analysis is supported by some of the typical syntactic tools for testing direct objects, such as moving into the focus of a question and clefting. However, constituency, movement and replacement tests show that the quotative clause does not behave like a normal transitive construction. For example, clefting and passivization of these forms give marked (ungrammatical, or strange at least) results: (9)a. ?“I’ll call you” was said by Pat cf. The cat was held by Pat b. ?What Pat did with “I’ll call you” was say it cf. What Pat did with the cat was hold it Quotation may also be less restricted than ordinary transitive verbs. They may occur parenthetically, unlike other verbs: (10)a. “I’ll call you” Pat said “and I hope you answer” cf. ?The cat Pat held and a book b. “I” Pat said “will call you and I hope you answer” cf. *The Pat held cat and a book Another issue is that manner-of-speaking verbs are not always obligatorily transitive. Verbs like think, laugh, scream, yell, whisper may be intransitive. A different model has been proposed, which does not rely on