Dice estar

[Perikles]

This is the headline of a newspaper today:

Gadafi habla de acto terrorista y dice estar respaldado por su pueblo

Ignoring the political issues, is there a name for this grammatical construction in Spanish? It looks like the accusative and infinitive construction for indirect speech which you find in Latin and Greek but I've never seen it in Spanish before. Here, the accusative bit is omitted. Is it used just with decir?

[aleCcowaN]

With any "verbo declarativo": decir, recordar, destacar, añadir, informar, manifestar, indicar, señalar, afirmar, declarar, ...

To subordinate, we have the ubiquitous "que"

"...dice que su pueblo lo respalda"

But being "respalda" in indicative, it is somewhat a 'lively' action, so you have to concede that it can be true. So, this is used in essays and textbooks to introduce new information:

"el autor nos dice que la felicidad se encuentra en ..."

or when the source is trusted

"...el doctor dijo que tiene un principio de diabetes ..."
"...dijo que no piensa pagar. Yo mismo lo oí."

But "verbos declarativos" and subjunctive -a "contrary to the fact" subjunctive, as they like to say- are not possible as it is parsed as a command (or it "smells" like a command):

"... dijo que su pueblo lo respalde ..."

So, when indirect speech is involved and the "declaration" is valid as "words that have been said" and not as a half proof of it being true, we use infinitive

"dijo estar respaldado por su pueblo"

what means you have to look elsewhere to know if it is true.

"dijo estar respaldado por su pueblo, y parece ser cierto porque miles de personas se congregaron, lo vitorearon, y finalmente lo levantaron en andas y lo arrojaron al golfo de Sirta"

"dijo estar respaldado por su pueblo, en una conferencia transmitida desde un búnker en su capital"

[Perikles]

Many thanks for that.

[aleCcowaN]

You're welcome!

I forgot to say that the distinction between "dijo que el pueblo lo respalda" and "dijo estar respaldado por el pueblo" is mostly in written language. It's not formal but in some way it ends up being that way. In daily speech, you can say "dijo que el pueblo lo respalda" and add some expression -even a subtle one- that means "I don't think so", "That's what he thinks", "You wish, jellyfish!", etc, so saying "dijo estar respaldado por el pueblo" sounds formal, though curiously, if you add the same expressions the outcome is the same.

In a nutshell, written expression, having no facial expression or intonation conveying additional information, or oral expression "con cara de póker" or 'formalish'.

[Perikles]

Yes, thanks again. Clearly, spoken language can convey more with intonation or facial expression, so written language needs something formulaic. Does this grammatical construction have a name in Spanish?

[aleCcowaN]

It looks like a sub-case of an "infinitivo -verbal, no nominal- subordinado" to me. But it's just a guess. These "infinitivos" (verbales) accepts all the "complementos" any verb accepts (maybe that's what you saw by comparing it with the accusative + infinitive construction of reported speech in classical languages). Spanish is proficient in using these infinitivos subordinados when the subordinated verb shows a state and the main verb relates to thinking or communicating:

Asegurará estar de acuerdo.
Juró entenderlo.
Afirmó no saber nada sobre eso.
Planea disculparse mañana.
Dijo sentirse seguro de su triunfo.

In other cases it becomes increasingly difficult to subordinate an infinitivo verbal, though infinitivo compuesto may be useful with one-time actions in the past:

Confesó haber robado el almacén.
Cree habérselo cruzado ayer en la calle.

Otherwise, it fails though I and millions say

Creo terminarlo mañana antes del mediodía.

Most verbs don't accept an infinitivo subordinado (verbs regarding movement, perception, etc.)

[Perikles]

Thanks yet again.