Re: A Simple Four Phrase Types Theory

E fésto Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...>:
> 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.
So?  If I were to say to two random individuals "I now pronounce you man
and wife", the same thing would happen, because I don't have the power to
produce that kind of result.  The case of "You are not a toad, you are
Pamela Anderson" is exactly analogous to this:

The fact that most people arent wizards has nothing to do with grammar.

> 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.
You think the rules change, perhaps, but I'll hafta be disinclined to
agree with you.... There are, for example, many people who dont think
performative statements such as "Fiat lux" or "Talitha koum" are limited
to a fairy-tale world; furthermore types of utterances such as you wish to
catalog should be based on pragmatic not semantic content.


        *Muke!
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