Re: Words that are just speech acts

On 10/24/06, And Rosta <and.rosta@...> wrote:
> Other clear examples are HELLO, GOODBYE, SORRY, THANKS/TA, CHEERS, CINCIN, BLESSYOU.
Define "cincin"?

> But some would argue that there are many other less obvious cases, such as WELL
> and NEVERTHELESS, and some, such as BUT, that have elements of both
> truthconditional and 'performative' meaning.
Would the above ones (hello, yes/no, etc) count as "performative"? It
seems a bit odd to call them that, to me.

Likewise "dog" doesn't seem either truthconditional or performative.
Nor "blue" or "clearly".

> In Livagian, ordinary predicates systematically have performative counterparts.
> For example, alongside the predicates "tell" and "regret" there are
> performatives meaning "I hereby tell you that p" and "I hereby express regret
> that p". So the idea that performative lexis is fundamentally different
> strikes me as on the wrong track.
To a certain extent NLF2DWS is a way of writing (diagramming?) ideas.
Performatives or pure "speech acts" would thus probably need to be
treated somewhat specially IMO, since there is not necessarily an
assumed context that the text is merely transcribing actual speech, so
the meta (like this) should be treated explicitly.

 - Sai

Replies