Transitividade de "speak"

Hi Anita,

"To speak" is both transitive and intransitive. I would accept your student's choice of "spoke" as a nice literary device. "Speak" can be used this way to indicate either "discourse" or a verbal manifestation, such as in:

The child spoke, to everyone's surprise.
Silence prevailed. Then he spoke softly, "Let's go."

Regards

Oh, I see , Henry. During her story, the st chose more literary words, so I guess "spoke" is ok, as you said.
Thank you so!

Anita, quoted speech (aka direct speech) usually takes an "X said" structure.

"Let's go," he said.
He said, "Let's go."

"Morgan," he wailed, "don't shoot him."
"Morgan, don't shoot him," he wailed.

I have never seen an "X spoke" structure used in place of an "X said" structure in quoted speech.

Anita,

A saída do Henry foi perfeita.'Speak' pode ser empregado em contextos literários neste caso.


'Uh, don't worry,' she spoke up tentatively. 'I'm really not in a hurry.--

http://www.penguin.com.au/lookinside/sp ... ge=extract

Boa sorte!

Just for fun, check out in Google "Jesus spoke and said". It's an unusual twinning of the two verbs to create a special effect.

True.
It's interesting Henry. But, how would you explain this form of usage?
Is it like an emphatic statement?

Yes, I think it's emphatic. There are in English a number of historical instances of the linking of a French and an English word, starting in Norman times (the language of the conqueror and of the conquered), such as in marriage vows ("to have and to hold"), but in this case both "speak" and "say" are old English words, so it doesn't seem to apply here. Perhaps it's a literary tradition in English, to have these double words testifying to the real occurrence of an event, and/or the importance of the event.

And in Portuguese, don't we say "Falou e disse"?

All the best.

Yeah, it's true . Voce falou e disse rs...