CAS LX 502
Semantics
12a. Speech acts
Ch. 10(3)
Conventional sentence types
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Declarative. (Assertion)
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Interrogative. (Question)
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Where did I leave it?
Imperative. (Order/Request)
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I seem to have forgotten my umbrella.
Go find my umbrella!
[ Optative. (Wish) ]
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If only I had my umbrella!
Austin (1955/1962/1975)
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A traditional view of meaning in language at
the time (which we have been exploring as
well) revolved around the assumptions that:
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The basic sentence type is declarative.
The main use of language is to describe states of affairs
The meaning of utterances can be described in terms of
truth and falsity (or the situations in which an utterance
would be true/false).
However, there are many sentence types and
usages that cannot really be said to be “true”
or “false”. This seems to cover only
declaratives, and not even all of them.
How to do things with words
Language—actually affecting the world.
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— I bet you $1 you can’t name the Super Tuesday
states. *(—You’re on).
I ate a sandwich.
I promise to get up early and vote.
I need the day off.
I (now) pronounce you man and wife.
I hereby revoke your license for 90-days.
May I have the salt?
NY, CA, MA, OH, VT, MN, CT, MD, RI, GA
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Performative utterances
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Certain utterances actually perform an act.
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I promise that I will do my homework.
I hereby declare this meeting adjourned.
#I hereby cook this cake.
For performative utterances, whether they
are true or not is not at issue; rather, we
might ask whether they work (felicitous) or
not (infelicitous).
Felicity
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Generally speaking:
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A1. There must be an accepted conventional
procedure having a certain conventional effect, the
procedure to include the uttering of certain words by
certain persons in certain circumstances…
A2. The particular persons and circumstances must be
appropriate for the invocation of the particular
procedure invoked…
B1. The procedure must be executed by all the
participants correctly…
B2. …and completely…
Also: sincerity as specified by the procedure.
Misfire and abuse
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A speech act will misfire if the
conditions aren’t met.
I pronounce you man and wife.
 You are hereby charged with treason.
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A speech act can be abused if
insincerly performed.
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I bet you $1,000,000 you will fail the test.
Three elements of a speech act
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Locutionary act: speaking/writing a
grammatical utterance.
Illocutionary act: action intended by the
speaker.
Perlocutionary act: effect intended by the
speaker.
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Arrest that man!
Urging, advising, …
Persuading, …
Categorization of speech
acts
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Searle (1976): Five main types
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Representatives. Commit to the truth of expressed
proposition
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Directives. Attempts to get addressee to do something
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Promising, threatening, offering, …
Expressives. Express a psychological state
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Demanding, questioning, requesting, …
Commissives. Commit to a future course of action
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Asserting, concluding, …
Thanking, apologizing, congratulating, …
Declarations. Effect immediate changes in the institutional
state of affairs.
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Christening, firing, marrying, …
Defining speech acts à la
Searle
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Schema:
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Preparatory condition(s)
Propositional condition(s)
Sincerity conditions(s)
Essential condition(s)
Promising (by S to H of A via P using E):
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Prep1: H would prefer S’s doing A to his not doing A and S
believes H would prefer S’s doing A to not doing A.
Prep2: It is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in
the normal course of events.
Prop: In expressing that P, S predicates a future act A of S.
Sinc: S intends to do A
Ess: the utterance E counts as an undertaking to do A.
Defining speech acts à la
Searle
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Schema:
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Preparatory condition(s)
Propositional condition(s)
Sincerity conditions(s)
Essential condition(s)
Questioning (by S to H via P using E):
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Prep1: S does not know the missing information.
Prep2: It is not obvious to S and H that H will provide the
information without being asked.
(Prop: No condition, any proposition.)
Sinc: S wants the missing information.
Ess: The act counts as an attempt to elicit this information
from H.
Implicit v. explicit performatives
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I hereby promise to pay you 35 euros.
I’ll give you 35 euros.
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(a promise, not a prediction or a statement).
It’s a fuzzy line.
Overriding convention:
indirect speech acts
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Can you pass the spinach?
Why don’t you go find your teddy bear?
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I must ask you to leave.
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Direct act: statement, indirect act: order/request
It’s freezing in here.
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Direct act: question, indirect act: request.
Direct act: statement, indirect act: request
So how do we know which one is meant?
Literal and non-literal
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Can you pass the spinach?
(Please) pass the spinach.
I wish you wouldn’t tap your pencil.
(Please) stop tapping your pencil.
Are you going to eat your peas?
(Please) eat your peas.
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Searle: These work by addressing one of the conditions.
Requesting (by S to H of A)
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Prep: H is able to perform A.
Sinc: S wants H to do A.
Prop: S predicates a future act A of H.
Ess: Counts as an attempt by S to get H to do A.
How we understand indirect
speech acts
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Searle: reasoning from
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Felicity conditions
Context
Principles of cooperative conversation
Can you pass the salt? (Quantity)
I wish you wouldn’t tap your pencil.
(Relation)
Convention:
Are you capable of passing me the salt?
Perception of the direct act:
Yes indeed.
Why be indirect?
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Close the window.
Can you close the window?
I don’t suppose you could close the window,
could you?
I wonder if you’d mind closing the window.
It’s rather chilly in here.
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Diminishing threats to face (worthiness, autonomy).
I’d love to go, but I have to wash my hair, I
have a headache, and it’s my mother’s
birthday. Maybe another time.
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Librarians and limits on QR
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Some librarian or other found every book.
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Some librarian knows that Pat found every book.
One librarian, but not one per book.
In order to get the “one per book” interpretation, we
would need to use QR to bring every book up higher in
the structure than some librarian or other. This suggests
that QR can only move a quantifier as high as the smallest
S in which it is found.
 [S Some librarian knows [S that Pat found every book]]
 [NP every book]i [S some lib. knows [S that Pat found ti]].
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One librarian, or one per book.
[S some librarian found [NP every book] ]
[NP every book]i [S some librarian found ti ].
More about librarians
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Some librarian or other found out which book every
student needed.
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One librarian or one librarian per book.
Some librarian found out, for each student x, the book that x needed.
For each student x, there is a (possibly different) librarian that found out
the book that x needed.
That shouldn’t be possible:
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[S some librarian found out
[S which book every student needed]].
Still more about librarians
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And it isn’t really…
Some librariani or other found out which book every
boy stole from heri.
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One librarian, not one per boy.
#For every boy x, there is some librarian or other that found out
the book that x stole from her.
Why?
[S some librariani found out
[S which book every boy stole from heri ]]
QR of questions?
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Consider the pair-list kind of question What did
everyone buy? interpreted as a series of
questions What did Pat buy? What did Tracy
buy? … defined by the smallest set that can
count as everyone.
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Some librarian or other found out
[which book every student needed].
For every question Q in the series defined by
Which book did every student need?, some
librarian or other found out the answer to Q.
QR of questions?
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Some librarian or other found out [which book every
student needed].
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Some librarian or other found out every answer.
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[S some librarian found out [S which book every student needed] ]
[S which book every student needed]i [S some librarian found out ti]
It’s as if the entire embedded question acts as a
quantifier. That isn’t moving out of its S.
Idea: when a question is interpreted as a series of
questions (the “pair-list” interpretation), it can be
considered a quantifier itself.
Librarians continued…
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Some librariani or other found out which book every
boy stole from heri.
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For every question Q in the series defined by Which book did every
boy steal from heri?, some librariani or other found out the answer
to Q.
[Which book did every boy steal from her]i
some librariani found out ti.
The idea is that if the question is raised up to a position
above some librarian in the tree, some librarian no
longer has scope/control over the pronoun her, and
so the choice of (possibly different) librarians cannot
determine the referent of her.
Last point on librarians and QR
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Some librarian or other thinks I found
out which book every boy needed.
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One librarian, not one-per-boy.
 [S
Some librarian or other thinks [S I found out
[S which book every boy needed] ] ].
 [S
Some librarian or other thinks [S I found out
[S which book every boy needed] ] ].