Can “was not ᴠᴇʀʙing” and “will not ᴠᴇʀʙ” ever be exact equivalents in reported speech? [closed]

Do English speakers understand this sentence:

1. I told him I wasn’t playing soccer anymore.

Exactly as they would this sentence:

2. I told him I will not play soccer anymore.

If so, why would they consider those two to be exact equivalents?

This is reported speech, where we backshift tenses. Backshifting happens when a verb tense is shifted back to a past form in reported speech.

What was said by John: "I am hungry." In reported speech, we see "John said that he was hungry."

In your example "I told him I wasn’t playing soccer anymore", what was actually said was "I'm not playing soccer any more".

Backshifting in reported speech

The short answer is that no, they do not mean the same thing.

The first with an inflection of the progressive construction be playing is a simple statement of the evidentiary future, but the second with an inflection of will play is a statement of a future that the speaker insists must come to pass.

Probabilities vs Demands

When someone says:

1. I will not play soccer anymore.

This sentence has two possible meanings, both quite different from the other. It can mean either of:

2. I refuse to play soccer anymore. (deontic modality)
3. I am not going to play soccer anymore. (epistemic modality)

When (1) is equivalent to (2), the modal verb will is here acting in what we call its deontic modality because the speaker is asserting how the world ought to be, what they are insisting that it must become. This mode of will not is the same as do not want to or indeed even refuse to because it involves a volition (a “wanting”, so to speak) or a permission or a demand, Basically, this is the sense of the verb will that actually means want or insist or demand. They are saying that while it is not that way now, they are insisting that it must become that way in the future.

In sharp contrast, when (1) is equivalent to (3), that same modal verb will is now acting in what we call its epistemic modality because the speaker is simply stating how they believe the world is likely to be or become. They are not attempting to impose their desire on the world. They’re only presenting the evidence of how it is or how it is going to be.

Embedded Speech: Backshifting and Frontshifting

When you embed the statement given by (1) in embedded speech such as you do with tell X that Y, you can do so with respect to the past (told, did tell, was telling), the present (tells, does tell, am telling, have told), or the future (will tell, going to tell, will be telling) in the new surrounding clause.

Your choice for the surrounding verb’s expression of time “leaks through” to “color” (meaning change) the time of the embedded clause’s verb as well. The constriction will not play uses the verb will in its present tense, by which I mean its morphological inflection with respect to time.

That morphological tense can be retained under indirect speech only when the outer verb tell is also in the present tense, as it is in:

4. I have told him that I will not play soccer anymore.

Notice how both clauses use present-tense inflections, have and will.

However, when the outer verb tell is instead in its past tense told, you must also use the past tense of will to the past tense, which is would:

5. I told him that I would not play soccer anymore.

This is what we call backshifting, something that happens in embedded clauses because of the tense of the surrounding matrix clause.

Now, English has no morphological inflection of tense to show future times, just various sorts of periphrastic expressions such as the present-tense applications of modal will or of be going to. So using one of these expressional periphrases for tell to express future times while still using the present tense does not change the tense of the verb play in the clause which tell is embedding:

6. I will tell him that I will not play soccer anymore.

Making Progress

For added emphasis, it is possible to use progressive ‑ɪɴɢ inflections in the embedded clause. When you do this, you always leave their own verbs in the present tense as dictated by the embedding verb’s present (or arguably better put, its nonpast) tense:

7. I will tell him that I will not be playing soccer anymore.
8. I will tell him that I am not playing soccer anymore.
9. I will tell him that I am not going to play soccer anymore.
10. I will tell him that I am not going to be playing soccer anymore.

You can think of this as backshifting’s opposite, a sort of “frontshifting” so to speak. But it is by no means mandatory. For the vast majority of occasions, the simpler version given by (6) is perfectly adequate. It’s also more common, probably because when possible, we prefer simpler and lighter verbal constructions over those that are heavier and more complicated.

Of course, all those periphrastic forms involving ‑ɪɴɢ progressives can be used just as easily when a matrix verb is in the past tense, not just when it is in the nonpast tense. But when you do that, because of backshifting you must also switch all the tenses in the embedded clause so that they match the tense of the other clause:

11. I told him that I would not be playing soccer anymore.
12. I told him that I was not playing soccer anymore.
13. I told him that I was not going to play soccer anymore.
14. I told him that I was not going to be playing soccer anymore.

There all the present-tense uses of will and am have all been backshifted to each of those two present-tense verbs’ respective past-tense forms, namely would and was.

Modalities Again

Just as the bi-modal (1) can have both the deontic reading of (2) and the epistemic reading of (3), every time you embed (1) into another clause as we’ve done for all the rest of these examples (4–14), you again have both possible modalities potentially active here. It all depends on the speaker’s perspective and intended meaning.

Deontic Embeddings

Those embedded examples that use either tense inflection of will within the embedded clause are more likely to be in the deontic mode of insistence. These are examples (4), (5), (6), (7), and (11) — because they all use an inflection of the modal will in the embedded interior clause. The tense of the exterior clause governs that of the interior one.

Epistemic Embeddings

In contrast, the embedded examples that use some inflection of be going to within their embedded clause are more likely to be in the epistemic mode of probability. Those are examples (8), (9), (10), (12), (13), and (14) — because they all use a suitably inflected form of the progressive be going to instead of the modal will within their embedded clause. As before, the tense of the exterior clause governs that of the interior one.