Skip to main content
Log in

Perlocutions

  • Published:
Linguistics and Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes and references

  1. Austin, J. L.: 1975, How To Do Things With Words, Eds. J. O. Urmson and MarinaSbisa, 2nd edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. p. 92.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Searle, J. R.: 1971, ‘Austin on Locutionary and Illocutionary Acts’, In Readings in the Philosophy of Language, Eds. J. Rosenberg and C.Travis, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, pp. 262–275.

    Google Scholar 

  3. There are other acts which can be distinguished here which Searle calls propositional acts, but these are unnecessary for our present purposes. Cf. Searle, J. R.: Speech Acts, 1969, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 24.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Austin, Speech Acts, 1969, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 103.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Davidson, Donald: 1975 ‘The Logical Form of Action Sentences’. In The Logic of Grammar, D. Davidson and G.Harman, (Eds.) Dickenson publishing Company, Encino, pp. 235–246.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Goldman, Alvin: 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Austin, 1970 A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. p. 101.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Austin, 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. p. 106.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Austin, 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc.:, Englewood Cliffs. p. 106.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Austin, 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc.:, Englewood Cliffs. pp. 130–131.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Austin, 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. pp. 110–111.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Searle, 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. pp. 24–29. A propositional act is an act which is performed in the course of performing an illocutionary act. Searle includes only referring and predicating in this class of acts.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Austin, 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. p. 113.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Austin, 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. p. 118.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Austin, 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. p. 116.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Strawson, P. F., ‘Intention, Convention, and Speech Acts’, In Readings in the Philosophy of Language, p. 606.

  17. This was pointed out to me by A. Baier.

  18. Austin, 1970, A Theory of Human Action, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, p. 117.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Anscombe, G.E.M.: 1958, ‘On Brute Facts’, Analysis, Vol. XVIII.

  20. Austin, Ibid., p. 117.

  21. Austin, Ibid., p. 103.

  22. Searle, J. R., Speech Acts, pp. 62–64. Strawson, P. F., Ibid., pp. 608–612.

  23. The examples in (14), (15), and (20) are from Austin, p. 130. See, also, Sadock J. 1977. ‘Aspects of Linguistic Pragmatics’. In Rogers, Wall, and Murphy, (Eds.), Proceedings of the Texas Conference on Performatives, Presuppositions, and Implicatives, Center for Applied Linguistics, Arlington, Virginia p. 68 and p. 75.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Austin, Ibid., p. 131. This is not the schema Austin proposes. His is ‘To say x was to do y. But substitution does not preserve grammaticality.

  25. Austin, Ibid., p. 131.

  26. Austin, Ibid., p. 122. Again these are not the schemata Austin proposes. I have made changes for the same reason as in Note 23.

  27. Lakoff, G: 1970, Irregularity in Syntax, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York. McCawley, J: 1968, ‘Lexical Insertion in a Transformational Grammar without Deep Structure’, In Papers of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Katz, J. J: 1970, ‘Interpretive Semantics vs Generative Semantics’, Foundations of Language, Vol. VI, p. 253.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Chomsky, N.: 1970, ‘Remarks on Nominalizations’, In Readings in English Transformational Grammar, R. Jacobs and P.Rosenbaum (Eds.) Ginn and Co., Waltham. Fodor, J: 1970, ‘Three Reasons for Not Deriving “Kill” from “Cause to Die”’, Linguistics Inquiry, Vol. XIII, Wierzbicka, A: 1975, ‘Why “Kill” Does Not Mean “Cause to Die”: The Semantics of Action Sentences’, Foundations of Language, Vol. XIII,

    Google Scholar 

  30. I take it that to inform someone is to make them aware of certain facts. All that might be required to achieve this is that the hearer understands what the speaker says.

  31. Cf. Cohen, T: ‘Illocutions and Perlocutions’ Foundations of Language Vol. II, pp. 492–503, who makes a similar proposal about the point or purpose of some illocutionary acts.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

A version of this paper was delivered at a conference on speech acts and pragmatics at Dobogoko, Hungary. I would like to thank Annette Baier, Charles E. Caton, David Copp and the referee of this journal for many valuable suggestions for improving this paper.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Davis, S. Perlocutions. Linguist Philos 3, 225–243 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00126511

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00126511

Keywords

Navigation