Action Nouns in Reports of Speech Acts

The paper sets out the question of possible links between reports of speech acts and verbal nouns in Latin. The syntax of the verbal noun has mainly been investigated with respect to its governing force. I introduce the notion of the report of a speech act in sections 1, 2. A survey of earlier work on verbal nouns as complements is presented in sections 3, 4. I try to sharpen the focus on a type of complement clause involving the report of a speech act, in contrast to modes of indirect discourse usually considered in discussions on complement clauses.