We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
TWO KINDS OF FORCE-CONTENT DISTINCTION
No theory of sentence meaning would be adequate if it failed to entail that a nondeclarative sentence like Is water odourless? and a declarative sentence like Water is odourless, though both meaningful, do not have the same meaning, and only theories of meaning that, like Searle's, aim to systematically relate differences in sentence meaning to differences in illocutionary act potential would have any chance of engendering such entailments. Still, not all ways of relating sentence meanings to illocutionary acts are adequate, and in this chapter I want to argue that a fundamental assumption that Searle uses in analyzing sentence meaning in terms of illocutionary acts is mistaken. The assumption (which is very widely shared among those who, along with Searle, duly acknowledge that no account of sentence meaning can dispense with an account of sentence mood) has to do with the particular way in which Searle interprets the distinction between the force and the content of illocutionary acts and applies it to the analysis of sentence meaning.
There is an innocuous way of interpreting the force-content distinction against which there can be no objection, and which I would be perfectly happy to accept.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
