Reported questions

[nardo]

I'm not talking about reported questions like I/she/he ASKED. Here are some of the examples from my textbook:

Mary: Who did you meet at the party last night?

Mary ASKS who I met at the party last night.

John: Did Mark see you?

John ASKS if Mark saw me.

I'm confused about how I'm supposed to form these sentences if I need to use asks instead of asked. How can I determine which tense do I use? Please no use of asked/wanted/said etc, only asks/wants/says. Thank you.

[Alan]

Although this use of the historic present (i.e. 'asks' rather than 'asked') is a little unusual and generally confined to literary contexts, your sentences are correct as written.