Illocutionary Acts And Sentence Meaning May 2026

Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning by William P. Alston

Acts that commit the speaker to future action, like promising or vowing. Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning

Meaning is determined by a sentence's potential to play the role a speaker intended. Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning by William P

Attempts to get the listener to do something, such as requesting or commanding. which Alston refines

The broader framework of speech-act theory, which Alston refines, identifies three distinct layers of an utterance:

In his seminal work , philosopher William P. Alston argues that the meaning of a sentence is fundamentally rooted in its illocutionary act potential . He defines an illocutionary act as the act of saying something with a specific "content," such as a request, an assertion, or a promise. The Core Theory: Sentence Meaning as Potential