Re: A Simple Four Phrase Types Theory

I thought of calling the magical ones
"superformative", because there are stronger than the
performative ones. I've often tried to tell to toads:
"You are not a toad, you are Pamela Anderson", but it
seems that neither the toad, neither society, neither
Pamela Anderson, agreed to that, and even myself, I
was little convinced by the result.

But if you use such a sentence in a fairy tale, most
of the listeners will agree without problems.

A "social" change (like declaring two people married,
or a meeting open, or like selling something to
somebody) has no effect on the physical world, only on
the conscience of the people who know of it. Changing
a toad into a princess has one. The referent world may
have no reality, but who can be sure that the 'real
one' has ? What's important is that most people agree
on the conventions ruling the world we're talking
about. Just like you agree that a tower cannot move in
diagonal at chess game, even if physically you CAN
move it diagonally : the referent world is then the
chess game, not the 'usual' one.

I was thinking of a language adapted to usual world,
not to fairy-tale world, that's why I made a
difference between performatives and superformatives.
Of course even such a language would have the
possibility to jump into a fairy-tale world (shifting
by "Once upon a time" for instance), but then the
rules change.

(By the way, "I sentence you to day" has no effect on
the poor guy's life. He might run away, call to
another court which will declare him innocent and
free, the guillotine may break down - in which case I
believe the convict is released, etc. It's just a
social convention to say that he was sentenced to
death).

--- Muke Tever <hotblack@...> wrote:
>
> > N.B. One could also add the +IBw-magic
> sentences+IB0-, which
> > change the physical (not only social) reality
> +IBM- like
> > +IBw-Abracadabra, thou are no more a toad, thou
> are a
> > princess+IB0-, but that whould refere to a special
> > universe.
>
> Those are technically a type of performative
> sentence.  The only
> difference between "I pronounce you man and wife"
> and "Abracadabra,
> s/toad/princess" is the set of people for whom those
> utterances are
> actually functional.  [The fact that you'd have
> trouble finding someone of
> the latter set in this world is immaterial.]
>
> I don't think it's entirely useful to differentiate
> between "social" and
> "physical" changes (as if society didnt exist in the
> material world) as
> performative sentences can have physical
> consequences without being
> magical at all, e.g., "I sentence you to death."
>
>
>         *Muke!

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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