Backshift

jooney Is it OK to leave it as is? Is there any reason why only the main clause was backshifted?

It is OK as is, yes.

It seems to me that the reported form you cited may well be a variant of this:

Apple said, "We have sold three million iPads since Friday."

Yes, of course it's fine. There is no issue of backshift in that particular subordinate clause. The clausal complement is in the preterite tense as one would expect with the temporal use of "since", backshift or not. The original utterance could hardly have been *"We have sold three million of our new iPads since they are introduced on Friday", could it?

BillJ

BillJThe original utterance could hardly have been *"We have sold three million of our new iPads since they are introduced on Friday", could it?

Right, but I don't think the OP is claiming this.

"We have sold three million since they were introduced on Friday" is the original, according to the OP (as I understood the question).

The question i

Thank you very much, CJ and BillJ, for your answer.

As CJ pointed out, I thought the concomitant change was necessary in the clausal complement of since when you backshifted the main clause.

I'ts still somewhat difficult to see why it was written that way.

Perhaps the reporter thought that the repeated, but strictly correct, use of the past perfect in "Apple said that it had sold three million since they had been introduced on Friday" sounded a tad clunky, so ignored the backshift rule!


On balance, I'd put my money on CJ's reading - I think he's right.


BillJ