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Expanding on Austin’s basic idea, Searle categorized felicity conditions.
Loosely speaking, there are:
 general conditions on the participants, for example, that they can understand the
language being used and that they are not play-acting or being nonsensical and
 content conditions.
More technically, Searle distinguished four types: preparatory conditions, sincerity
conditions, essential conditions, and propositional content conditions.
1. Preparatory conditions
Preparatory conditions are those existing antecedent to the utterance, including the
speaker’s beliefs about the hearer’s capabilities and state of mind. The preparatory
conditions for a promise are significantly different from those for a warning or an
apology. When we promise to do something, there are two preparatory conditions: first,
the event will not happen by itself, and second, the event will have a beneficial effect.
When we utter a warning, there are the following preparatory conditions: it isn't clear
that the hearer knows the event will occur, the speaker does think the event will occur,
and the event will not have a beneficial effect. An apology requires that the speaker
believe that some act has occurred that is harmful to the hearer.
2. Sincerity conditions
Sincerity conditions relate to the speaker’s state of mind. For a promise, the speaker
must genuinely intend to carry out the future action, and, for a warning, the speaker
genuinely believes that the future event will not have a beneficial effect. A valid apology
requires that the speaker feel remorse for his act.
3. Essential condition
The essential condition requires that the utterance be recognizable as an instance of
the illocutionary act in question. For example, by the act of uttering a promise, we
thereby intend to create an obligation to carry out the action as promised. In other
words, the utterance changes my state from non-obligation to obligation. Similarly, with
a warning, under the essential condition, the utterance changes our state from non-
informing of a bad future event to informing. This essential condition thus combines
with a specification of what must be in the utterance content, the context, and the
speaker's intentions, in order for a specific speech act to be appropriately (felicitously)
performed.
4. Propositional content conditions
Propositional content conditions relate to the state of affairs predicated in the utterance.
For example, for both a promise and a warning, the content of the utterance must be
about a future event. A further content condition for a promise requires that the future
event will be a future act of the speaker. A valid apology must predicate a past act of
the speaker.
The theory of felicity conditions helps to account for the relationship between
specific illocutionary acts within the same category.