? He whispered that no one dared go there. That ain’t right.

@TinfoilHat What's wrong with it?

@tchrist — That would not be the outcome for reported speech for the OP’s example of “No one dare go there,” he whispered.

@TinfoilHat I'm pretty sure that it would; why not?

@TinfoilHat: How would you correct it? Surely not my suggestion: he whispered that no one durst go there (marginally acceptable in 19th century English, but not today).

@TinfoilHat Are you perhaps construing this to be a negative imperative sentence rather than a negative declarative sentence? If so, then there's no tense here to change. Settle down, everyone. Give it a try. Dare to dream! are positive commands while Nobody move! Never look up. Don't you dare say a word! are all negative commands. Backshifting works differently in commands because their verbs are not finite/inflected/tensed forms to start with, just like with the untensed verbs used in the so-called mandative subjunctive for the selfsame reason. Leave them in their bare, unshifted forms.

@alphabet — Your dared would be in the reported version of “No one dares go there,” he whispered.

@TinfoilHat I think dared would be correct either way; what's your reasoning?

@TinfoilHat No, you don't inflect that. It’s just One dare not go there; you don't use dares in the negative particularly.

@tchrist — What do you mean? No one dares go there is commonplace and completely idiomatic.

Is there already a consensus?

@tchrist: In no one dares (to) go there, the verb dare is a regular verb. In no one dare go there, it's a modal verb. But for me, the past tense of the modal verb is dared, just the same as the regular verb (unless you use the dialectical form durst, which is obsolete in standard English).

Compare dare as a modal in No one dare go there to need in No one need go there. These modals appear in negative forms and they don’t inflect. Now cast those both in reported speech. He whispered that no one dare go there. He whispered that no one need go there. You’re trying to backshift something that has nothing to shift back to. Dared is for lexical usage.

@TinfoilHat I'm skeptical. I can find plenty of attestations where "dared not" is used in place of "did not dare," making it an auxiliary, e.g. in The New York Times.

@TinfoilHat I don't think H&P list the form dared as an auxiliary, but I find that hard to square with lots of examples of it meeting their NICE criteria.

But the verb dare should be in present, not in past. Because still no one dares go there

They dared not go there means They didn’t dare [to] go there — lexical. Reported speech for “No one dare go there,” he whispered would be He whispered that no one dare go there (not dared). This CGEL footnote (pp. 110–111) seems to say what I know by ear: “Dared has replaced the now archaic durst as preterite of the modal, but the forms dare and daren’t are commonly used where normally a backshifted preterite would be found (He knew she dare not tell her father)...” In traditional grammar...

I don't know who among you is right but I agree that "need" as a modal verb does not change in indirect speech. Cambridge says so too. dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/…

Also, I know that backshifting is not mandatory but you can do it even if something is still true. "He proved that the earth goes/went round the sun." "Are you deaj? I asked how old you are/were."

So does "dare" actually work like "need" and not change? Or does it work like "can" and can change to "dared"?

It seems that different English speakers have different opinions about the past tense of modal dare. I think it's dared, but @TinfoilHat is convinced it's dare. This Ngram pretty convincingly shows that relatively few (if any) English speakers think the past tense of modal need is needed, but many think the past tense of modal dare is dared.

@PeterShor — dared not go means didn’t dare go — and that is lexical, not modal, usage. As a modal, dare acts like must, need, and ought to — there is nothing to backshift to. When in doubt, go with what Prof. John Lawler says (see his comment on OP’s question).

@Tinfoil Hat: John Lawler is wrong in this case. You can see that he dared not go is modal because we only put not directly after modal and auxiliary verbs. We say he didn't let go, but we don't say he let not go because let is not a modal verb. Similarly, we say he didn't go get his keys, but we don't say he got not his keys, because get is not a modal verb. So the fact that we can say he dared not go means that dare is a modal verb here; the fact that it means exactly the same thing as he didn't dare go is irrelevant.

@Tinfoil hat: Actually, looking at John Lawler's comment, he's not wrong. He simply says that dare is the past tense of the modal verb dare. This is completely correct, but dared is also the past tense of the modal verb dare. Lots of verbs have two alternative past tenses: lighted and lit, dived and dove, dreamed and dreamt. The modal dare is another one of these.

@PeterShor — He called it an infinitive, not an inflection, in that comment.

@TinfoilHat: This Collins Dictionary grammar note agrees that dared can be the past tense of the modal dare. "The past form needed is not used as a modal; dared is occasionally used as a modal. The modal uses of these verbs are all negatives or questions."