Page 13 - 6689

12

THE PERFORMATIVE HYPOTHESIS

Some linguists (Ross, Saddock, Gazdar) assume that underlying every utterance
(U) there is a clause, containing a performative verb (VP) which makes the illocutionary
force explicit. This is known as the performative hypothesis and the basic format of the
underlying clause is
I (hereby) Vp you (that) U.
I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit.
I warn you I’m not going to play ball.
In this clause, the subject must be first person singular, followed by the adverb 'hereby',
indicating that the utterance 'counts as' an action by being uttered. There is also a
performative verb (Vp) in the present tense and an indirect object in second person
singular ('you'). This underlying clause will always make explicit, as in [10, 12 ] and [12b.
], what, in utterances such as [9 ] and [11. ], is implicit.
The advantage of this type of analysis is that it makes clear just what elements are
involved in the production and interpretation of utterances.
 Reflexive pronouns (like 'myself in [12]) require the occurrence of an antecedent (in
this case 'I') within the same sentence structure. The explicit performative in [12 ]
provides the 'I' element. Similarly, when you say to someone, 'Do it yourself!', the
reflexive in yourself is made possible by the antecedent 'you' in the explicit version ('I
order you that you do it yourself).
 Another advantage is to show that some adverbs such as 'honestly', or adverbial
clauses such as 'because I may be late', as shown in [13], naturally attach to the
explicit performative clause rather than the implicit version.
13. a. Honestly, he's a a bad guy.
b. What time is it, because I may be late?
In [13a. ], it is the telling part (the performative verb) that is being done 'honestly' and, in
[13b. ], it is the act of asking (the performative again) that is being justified by the
'because I may be late' clause.
There are two main technical disadvantages to the performative hypothesis:
 uttering the explicit performative version of a command, for example, has a much
more serious impact than uttering the implicit version. The two versions are
consequently not equivalent.
 It is also difficult to know exactly what the performative verb (or verbs) might be for
some utterances.
Eg. ? I hereby insult you that you're a scoundrel.

DIRECT AND INDIRECT ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS
Searle pointed out that an implicit performative can be carried out indirectly by
appearing to carry out another illocutionary speech act (When uttering a question Can
you bring me your book? you are issuing a directive). It turns out that there is a a simple
way of differentiating direct and indirect illocutionary acts
This structural distinction between the types of speech acts is provided by the three
basic sentence types. As shown in the table below, there is an easily recognized
relationship between the structural forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative,