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Embedded performatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Chungmin Lee
Chungmin Lee*
Affiliation:
Seoul National University
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Abstract

English has two classes of modal deference expressions which may be superordinate to performative verbs: one asks permission from the addressee to perform the act; the other expresses the speaker's frame of mind in performing the illocutionary act. These occur with performative verbs in certain restricted ways because of their associated senses and presuppositions, but they have no illocutionary force of their own. Thus an utterance cannot constitute an intended illocutionary act if there is a conflict in the speaker's pragmatic presupposition between the addressee-authority and the speaker-authority.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , March 1975 , pp. 105 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 by Linguistic Society of America

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