英语从句类型和首要言语行为

Clause-type,primary illocution,and
mood-like operators in English
Keith Allan
Linguistics Program,Monash University,Wellington Road,Clayton 3800,Vic.,Australia
Accepted 17December 2004
Abstract
This paper is about the semantics of English clause-types and of the subsentences (a generic term for subclauses and clause or sentence fragments)that function like clauses.The formal defining characteristics for declarative,interrogative,imperative,hypothetical,and expressive clauses and subsentences,and their exclamative counterparts,are described in terms of lexical,morphosyntactic and prosodic marking,their characteristics in main and subordinate clauses,and under negation.The main focus is upon their semantic properties identified in terms of their typical primary illocution (PI).The PI is the semantics (rather than pragmatics)of the clause-type;the PI is often identifiable with Ômood Õ;but we shall see that the traditional term mood does not adequately fit what we find.The binary category realis–irrealis is more appro-priate.I discuss relations between mood,the realis–irrealis distinction,clause-type,and illocu-tion in English.Declaratives (PI T ),interrogatives (PI Q )and imperatives (PI I )are in contrast with one another,and all three in contrast with one very small set of just two hypotheticals (PI H )and a somewhat larger set of idiomatic subsentences that have the primary illocution of expressives (PI X ).Most hypotheticals occur within the scope of T ,Q ,I or X where they mod-ify the interpretation to hypotheticality.Although hypotheticals have sometimes been called Ôsubjunctives Õ,there is a conflict with traditional notions of the exclusivity of moods.Exclama-tives all occur as modifications of the other five clause-types or subsentences.
Ó2005Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.
Keywords:Clause-type;Declarative;Exclamative;Expressive;Illocutionary force;Imperative;Interrog-ative;Irrealis;Mood;Primary illocution;Realis;Subjunctive
0388-0001/$-see front matter Ó2005Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/ngsci.2004.12.001
E-mail address:
keith.allan@.au
Language Sciences 28(2006)
1–50
2K.Allan/Language Sciences28(2006)1–50
1.Preliminaries
This paper1is about the semantics of English clause-types and of the subsentences (a generic term for subclauses and clause or sentence fragments)that function like clauses.Clause-type is formally defined by morphosyntax,lexis,and prosody.Each clause-type has a unique primary illocution(PI)which provides an initial clue to the pragmatically determined illocutionary point of the utterance containing the clause.2 The PI is the semantics of clause-type which may suggest that it is part of the locu-tionary force rather than the illocutionary force;yet the PI is certainly an illocution-ary force indicating device because in choosing one particular clause-type rather than another,Speaker displays some particular illocutionary intention(exactly what illo-cutionary intentions match what clause-types will become apparent).A degree of coincidence between clause-type and illocutionary force has been recognized by grammarians in the western classical tradition at least since the time of Apollonius Dyscolus(100CE;cf.Householder,1981)and probably since the time of Protagoras (Diogenes-Laertius,1925;see Sanctius,1585;Lancelot,1644;Lane,1700;Whitney, 1888;Sadock,1974;Van Valin and LaPolla,1997;Huddleston and Pullum,2002).
How does illocutionary force enter the picture?
•Among other things,linguistics is concerned with utterances in which Speaker uses a language expression and thereby performs a locutionary act;to do so, Speaker uses an identifiable sentence or subsentence from a language L.The result is a locution.
1This paper was originally inspired by Kate BurridgeÕs unpublished paper on imperatives.Her syntax for imperatives has been used as a model for discussing the morphosyntax of other clause-types.Kate is also the source for many of the examples collected from Big Issue,a street magazine sold by homeless or vulnerably housed people,and Kate directed me to some of the references here cited.She read several versions of the paper and made numerous valuable suggestions and substantial contributions,for which I am deeply grateful.For comments on an earlier draft of this paper,thanks are due to Pedro Chamizo Domı´nguez,Lloyd Humberstone,Shahla Sharifi,and Jae Song.I am also grateful for discussions with Keith Brown and Rob Stainton.Without hesitation,I shoulder all blame for infelicities in this work.
2Symbols used in this paper.PI=primary illocution.U is a variable for the propositional content of the clause.There are six mood-like PI operators:declarative T,interrogative Q,imperative I,hypothetical H (which includes subjunctives),expressive X,exclamative!.SJV=subjunctive morpheme in glosses.3PL= third person plural morpheme in glosses.Semantic tense or time operators:P U<t d=0where P symbolizes ‘‘the event or state of affairs spoken of has already taken place before the time of utterance and is not current at the time of utterance’’and t d=0is read‘‘the moment of utterance is simultaneous with the deictic centre;N U't d=0where N means‘‘the predication is located in time such that the situation is current at the time of utterance,t0’’;F U>t d=0where F means‘‘the event or state of affairs spoken of has not yet taken place at the time of utterance’’.The present perfect is like the past in locating an event that precedes the moment of utterance,but unlike the past it is used of an event or state of affairs located within a period of time whose endpoint is the moment of utterance:N d...[P U]such that N d't0.The pluperfect,PP,is a relative tense denoting a time that precedes a past deictic centre for an event or state of affairs seen as narratively relevant at the deictic centre,P d...[P U]such that P d<t0.The negative operator:.The semantic equivalence relation M.Pitch symbols:rise´,fall`,rise-fallˆ,fall-riseˇ,same as onset to following pitch .
K.Allan/Language Sciences28(2006)1–503•Producing the locution demands that Speaker has knowledge of the morphosyn-tax,lexicon,semantics,and phonology of the language used.Recognizing the locution demands that Hearer has comparable knowledge.
•A locution will normally bear more than one illocutionary force.For instance,IÕll see you at10is a statement,prediction,and potentially commissive;yet,using it, Speaker will usually have only one message to convey—depending on context, perhaps a promise or a threat.The illocutionary force that carries this message is called the illocutionary point of the utterance.
•The form of the locution in the utterance must be the starting point for HearerÕs interpretation of the utterance meaning.What else is there?3Thus,Hearer must seek to recognize(a)the locution,including all the possible senses of each clause;
(b)what Speaker intends the locution to refer to;and(c)the illocutionary forces
within the utterance that give rise to its illocutionary point.Hearer hears the locu-tion,recognizes its sense,looks to the context tofigure out the apparent reference, and then seeks to infer SpeakerÕs illocutionary intention.
•SpeakerÕs illocutionary intention is to have Hearer recognize the illocutionary point of SpeakerÕs utterance in order to achieve a particular perlocutionary effect—the behavioural and/or cognitive and/or emotional response to the illocu-tionary forces in the utterance.SpeakerÕs perlocutionary act is an act of achieving
a particular perlocutionary effect on Hearer as a result of Hearer recognizing
(what s/he takes to be)the locution and illocutionary forces in SpeakerÕs utterance.
•Recognizing the clause-type is thefirst step towards discovering the illocutionary point via the PI.It is important to reaffirm that the PI is the semantic property of the clause-type(details will be given shortly).As mentioned earlier,the PI of IÕll see you at10is a statement(with its potential truth value);the statement makes a prediction about the speakerÕs future behaviour which,entering the pragmatic domain,constitutes a commissive;in turn this commissive may be a promise or
a threat depending on several contextual factors.The PI is the crucial semantic
basis for the pragmatic inferencing that leads to the illocutionary point.
The western classical tradition identifies three moods:indicative,subjunctive, imperative.Jespersen describes these respectively as theÔfact-moodÕ,theÔthought-moodÕ,and theÔwill-moodÕ:
they express certain attitudes of the mind of the speaker towards the contents of the sentence,though in some cases the choice of a mood is determined not by the attitude of the actual speaker,but by the character of the clause itself and its relation to the main nexus on which it is dependent[i.e.it is grammatically conditioned].(Jespersen,1958,p.313;and cf.Jespersen, 1909–1949,VII,p.623)
3For convenience I use Speaker in place ofÔspeaker or writerÕand Hearer forÔhearer or readerÕ;they are defined as in Allan(2001).
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This ternary division does not work for English because either there is no sub-junctive,or else subjunctives are also found within indicatives(as we shall see). Furthermore,if we are to believe the following quotation from the Peri bi o n dogmat o nkai apophthegmat o n t o n en philosophia eudokim e sant o n(Lives,Teach-ings,and Sayings of Eminent Philosophers)by3rd century Greek author Diogenes Laertius,Protagoras(490–420BCE)split the indicative into interrogative and declarative.
[Protagoras]was thefirst to classify utterances into four[moods],namely: optative-subjunctive mood[euch o l e],interrogative[er o t e sis],declarative[apo-krisis],imperative[entol e].(Book IX)
Based on the classical languages of the European tradition,Palmer(2001,2003) recognizes only two moods:indicative and subjunctive which he compares with the realis–irrealis division proposed for some Native American languages(Chafe, 1995;Mithun,1995,1999)and Papuan languages(Roberts,1990);and also with the assertive–non-assertive division proposed by Quirk et al.(1985),Wierzbicka (1988),and Lunn(1995).Although Palmer identifies only two moods he discusses interrogatives,imperatives,jussives,prohibitives,exclamatives,and,a few other mood-like categories;Palmer does not clarify their status with respect to one another,or with his binary mood system.Palmer(2001,p.104,201f;2003,p.3f)de-nies that English has a subjunctive;but Jespersen(1909–1949,1958,VII,§18),Givo´n (1994),O¨vergaard(1995)and Huddleston and Pullum(2002),among many others, would disagree.Whatever stance one takes,the relationships among clause-types(and corresponding subsentences),moods and illocutions are controversial. English does notfit a binary system of mood any better than it matches a ternary system.In fact the traditional term mood does not adequatelyfit what wefind,even if we were to admit a plethora of minor moods(as in e.g.Harnish,1983,1994).To sidestep controversy,I discuss hypotheticals rather than subjunctives and primary illocution rather than mood;and whereas Palmer focuses on the morphosyntactic definition of mood,I focus on the distinctive semantic property of a clause-type, the PI.
Palmer quotes with approval MithunÕs(1999,p.173)characterizations of realis (+R)and irrealis(ÀR):
The realis portrays situations as actualized,as having occurred or actually occurring,knowable through direct perception.The irrealis portrays situa-tions as purely within the realm of thought,knowable only through imagi-nation.
Cross-linguistically there is a cline between a basket of overlapping categories indicative/realis/assertive at one pole and another basket comprised of such catego-ries as subjunctive/hypothetical/irrealis/uncertain at the other(cf.Givo´n,1994;Weh-meier,2005).All languages have a declarative as the most frequent and least marked clause-type;here in this paper its PI is symbolized T,because its token potentially bears a truth value.The declarative is typically+R(though it may include a hypo-
K.Allan/Language Sciences28(2006)1–505 thetical,H,as we shall see).At the opposite extreme are hypotheticals,counterfac-tuals,intensionals,traditional subjunctives,and otherÀR categories for which there is often no unique morphology;to quote(Givo´n,1994,p.277)on the subjunctiveÔan air-tight,categorial definition...remains an unrealistic goalÕ.4Between the extremes of+R andÀR are strung interrogatives,imperatives,negatives,futures,and habitu-als which may align with either+R orÀR categories.For instance the negative clause Jim is not here describes an event that can be seen as a factual statement hav-ing a truth value;and therefore aligned with T,+R;alternatively,it is a counter-fact aligned withÀR categories.Thus in Spanish,(1)is T(+R)but the negative(2)is nor-mally subjunctive(ÀR)(cf.Travis,2003).
1.Pienso que esta´dormida.
I.think that3.S.be asleep.FEM
‘‘I think she is asleep.’’
2.No pienso que este´dormida
not I.think that3.S.be.SJV asleep.FEM
‘‘I donÕt think she is asleep.’’
Similarly in French:je crois quÕelle est malade‘‘I think that she is sick’’but je ne crois pas quÕelle soit[SJV]malade‘‘I donÕt believe that she is sick’’.There is also an inter-esting case from Old English:Nu cwædon gedwolmen·æt deofol gesceope sume ges-ceafta ac hi leogaðÔnow said heretics that Devil created.SJV some creatures but they lieÕ(Ælfric Homilies I.16.19,quoted in Traugott,1972,p.100):the subjunctive(ÀR) signals a nonfactual statement—a lie.A question Who is that?has no truth value(*It is true that who is that),thus it can align withÀR categories;but in the western clas-sical tradition it is indicative and aligned with T as+R.TheÀR categories in English include:
•Futures(F)
•Imperatives(I)
•Infinitives(V and to V)
•Complements of mandative and optative predicates
•Deontics5(must,ought to,should)
•Hypotheticals(H)
The future isÀR because it is not,in MithunÕs words,Ôactualized,as having occurred or actually occurring,knowable through direct perceptionÕ;that is why in many lan-
4Jespersen(1958,p.318)writes:Ôwe regard the indicative as the mood chosen when there is no special reason to the contrary,the subjunctive as a mood required or allowable in certain cases varying from language to language.Õ
5Given that there are various interpretations of modality terms likeÔrootÕ,ÔepistemicÕandÔdeonticÕmeanings,I use them as defined in Allan(2001,pp.358–365).
6K.Allan/Language Sciences28(2006)1–50
guages the future,especially less certain futures,are marked by a modal.However the future is not subjunctive:the irreality is temporal rather than other worldly, i.e.the world remains constant e.g.if the start world and time is w0,t0the future is w0,t1where t1>t0.With deontics and hypotheticals the irreality is a different world w h accessible from the world in which the utterance takes place,w0,but none the less hypothetical.Although these brief explanations oversimplify the distinction between different types of irreality,they serve to show why differentÀR properties are differ-ently signalled.
Sadock and Zwicky(1985)surveyed35languages representing a wide range of language families and linguistic areas.They found that every language distinguishes
a declarative(3),interrogative(4),and imperative(5).
3.He just wouldnÕt stop whingeing.
4.Will you stop whingeing?
5.Stop your bloody whingeing!
It is surely no accident that these are the three clause-types orthographically marked byÔ.Õ,Ô?Õ,and(often)Ô!Õrespectively.I shall refer to the declarative,interrogative, and imperative as the three major clause-types.Sadock and Zwicky found that many languages have clause-types with other functions,such asÔexclamationsÕ,imprec-atives,and optatives.They claim that clause-types are mutually exclusive;but,as we shall see,this simply is not true except byfiat.
Bo¨rjars and Burridge(2001)recognized four clause-types:declarative,(3),inter-rogative,(4),imperative,(5)and exclamative(6).
6.What a bloody whinger he was!
Bo¨rjars and Burridge also discuss echo questions.Almost any clause-type can be echoed;examples are italicized in(7–11).
7.X:I cancelled the party.Y:You did(what)?
8.X:What did it cost them?Y:What did it cost who?
9.X:Pay no taxes!Y:Pay no what?
10.X:DonÕt exert yourself!Y:DonÕt exert myself?
11.X:How well he danced!Y:How well who did what?
(7)responds to a declarative,(8)to an interrogative,(9–10)to imperatives,(11) to an exclamative.Note that the morphosyntax of the source clause(X)is largely maintained in the echo.Where these echoes are expostulations(You did what?!, Pay no what!?)they are a type of exclamative and likely to be rhetorical. However,echo questions have the same primary illocution as any other interrogative.
Huddleston and Pullum(2002)identify declaratives,imperatives and exclamatives along with two kinds of interrogatives:ÔclosedÕinterrogatives(sometimes called yes–no or polar interrogatives)like(4)plus aphetic interrogatives like Care to come
K.Allan/Language Sciences28(2006)1–507 along?;andÔopenÕinterrogatives(sometimes called wh-interrogatives)like most of the echoes in(7–11),and also(12).
12. a.What did it cost?
b.WhatÕs the time?
c.Why bother?
Allan(2001)recognized six clause-types:declarative,(3),interrogative,(4),imper-ative,(5),expressive,(13),subjunctive within a declarative,(14),subjunctive within an interrogative,(15).This paper revises and refines the account of mood,illocu-tions,and clause-types presented in Allan(2001);for instance,I now say that the PI of(14)is declarative and that of(15)interrogative.
13. a.Thank you.
b.Goodness!
14. a.Would that you never have to kill a man!
b.I wish I were rich.
c.If Harry should call,tell him IÕll be back this evening.
15 a.Would you mail this for me?
b.Should I write to him?
What are the criteria for identifying clause-type?Word order is sufficient to distin-guish declarative He is tall from interrogative Is he tall?but insufficient to distinguish declarative(16)from interrogative(17).Their spoken forms would differ prosodi-cally,most notably in intonation,as can be seen from a comparison of Figs.1and2.6
16.JohnÕs gone to New York.
17.JohnÕs gone to New York?
I conclude that(16)and(17)are uncontroversially formally distinct clause-types.In Navajo,the imperative has the same morphosyntax as the declarative,but it is pro-sodically distinct.In Korean declarative,interrogative,imperative and propositive (letÕs constructions)are formally identical in the so-called intimate and polite speech levels,but are distinguished by prosody.7It follows that prosody is a defining char-acteristic in the definition of clause-type.
Although questions like(18)might be prosodically marked as interrogatives,they are most clearly marked lexically,by the appearance of the wh-word at the questioned location.
18. a.JohnÕs gone where?
b.You were where on the night of April14th at around10.30p.m.?
6The analysis uses PRAAT software by Paul Boersma and David Weenink,freely available at http: //www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat.
7Thanks to Mary Anne Willie(p.c.)for the information about Navajo and to Jae Jung Song(p.c.)for the information about Korean.
Lexical marking is significant in identifying interrogatives in subordinate clauses,italicized in (19).
19. a.She asked whether/if John had gone to New York .
b.He wondered how Max was going to pay the huge fine.
Many (uttered)subsentences—clause fragments whose missing constituents are recoverable from context—clearly function like well-established clause-types.It is prosody,or its typographic counterpart,that distinguishes interrogative (20)and imperative (21)from each other and from declaratives.Other examples of distinct subsentence-types are the imperatives in (22);responses like declarative (23)and interrogative (24)
20.
John?‘‘Is that you?’’21.
JOHN!‘‘Come in at once!’’22.
a.Shoulders back!
b.Easy now!23.
Yes,you.24.Why me?
An utterance of the name John in answer to Who Õs that?must be judged declarative on prosodic and contextual grounds.Such subsentences seem intuitively to function like distinct clause-types and to have the same PIs as the corresponding (full)clause-type.
I have established that definitions of clause-types utilise at least the following cri-teria:lexical form,morphosyntactic form,and/or prosodic form.By hypothesis,each clause-type has a primary illocution (PI)that constitutes the semantic content of that clause-type,and thus clause-type serves as an illocutionary force indicating device.
In the rest of this paper I examine the semantics of the three major clause-types,declarative,interrogative,imperative to further set the scene before turning to dis-cuss four sets of hypotheticals.First is a couple of rare independent
hypotheticals;
Fig.2.
Interrogative.
Fig.1.Declarative.
8K.Allan /Language Sciences 28(2006)1–50
K.Allan/Language Sciences28(2006)1–509 next I discuss at some length conditional hypotheticals before trying tofit the complements of mandative predicates into the analytical framework being presented. Finally there is a very short section on hypotheticals in the scope of the interrogative.
I then make a strong case for recognizing expressive idioms as aÔclause-typeÕ,despite the fact that nearly all of them are subsentences.Finally,I argue that spoken excla-matives are defined prosodically and written exclamatives by typographic represen-tation of the normal prosodic form;exclamatives only ever occur within one of the other clause-types already established.
2.The three major clause-types:declarative,interrogative,imperative
In all languages,declaratives are the most frequent and least marked of all clause-types.8In English they typically have the sequence SUBJECT_VERB_(OBJECT).There is a vast range of possibilities of which(25)is a small sample.
25. a.Max shot Bill dead.
b.Bill was shot dead by Max.
c.Bill,Max shot.
d.Bill died.
e.Bill is in the graveyard under a large headstone.
f.The headstone is in the graveyard.
g.In the graveyard wefind BillÕs headstone.
h.ThereÕs a headstone marking BillÕs grave.
i.It seems(that)thereÕs a headstone marking BillÕs grave.
j.Max gave BillÕs family a donation towards BillÕs headstone.
k.ItÕs snowing is a declarative sentence in English.
l.Mortgage rates down at last.
m.Diana dead in car crash.
n.Dunno who did it.
o.[Q:Who called?A:]Jack.
Because the declarative is the default clause-type,the clearest definition is seman-tic.The primary illocution of a declarative is defined as follows.
h form i T[U]an assertoric clause or subsentence such as(3)
and(25).The typical prosody involves downdrift.9
h description i Speaker says that U.Declaratives potentially have
truth values.
8Sadock and Zwicky(1985)say that Hidatsa hasfive kinds of declarative;but Palmer(2001,p.37) suggests that they are evidentials,despite the fact that Matthews(1965)calls them kinds of declarative mood.
9In certain contexts,especially in some dialects,high rise terminals occur;for conditions on these see e.g. (Allan,1984)and references cited there,also(Horvath,1985).
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h precondition i Speaker has reason to believe that U.
h illocutionary intention i Speaker reflexively intends the utterance of the clause to
be recognized as a reason for Hearer to believe that
Speaker has reason to believe that U.(Notice SpeakerÕs
purported commitment to the truth of what is being said.) T is the declarative PI operator.Recognition of the form of the clause-type leads to its identification in the description.A precondition,more or less the(Austin,1975)Ôpreparatory conditionÕ,is part of oneÕs knowledge about the proper grounds for uttering a declarative clause(and therefore includes SpeakerÕs presuppositions). The illocutionary intention of a declarative arises directly from SpeakerÕs use of this clause-type,given the precondition.The primary illocution here isÔdeclarativeÕ, which is not to be confused with aÔdeclarationÕ:the declarative performs an act of saying;a declaration performs acts of declaring such things as legal verdicts and umpiring decisions,or effecting states of affairs such as marriage,job appointment, etc.Declarations are expressed through declaratives;hereÕs one from a property sale contract in which deontic shall is used to identify legally binding conditions: The rents and profits of the property hereby sold shall belong to the Vendor up to and including the date of possession and thereafter to the Purchaser and shall be dealt with as follows...
I shall not further discuss declarations,see Searle(1969,1975b)and Allan(1994b).
The definition of declaratives refers to SpeakerÕs reflexive intention.In the canon-ical speech event,there is an assumption that Speaker intends to communicate with Hearer;following Bach and Harnish(1979),I call thisÔthe communicative presump-tionÕ.As recognized by Grice(1957,1968,1969),the intention is reflexive:it is Speak-erÕs intention to have a person in earshot recognize that Speaker wants him or her to accept the role of Hearer and therefore be an(or the)intended recipient of SpeakerÕs message and consequently react to it.More precisely,SpeakerÕs reflexive intention to-wards Hearer is the intention to have Hearer recognize that,when uttering U in con-text C,Speaker intends U to have a certain effect on Hearer partly caused by Hearer recognizing that Speaker has the intention to communicate with him or her by means of U.10So,when Joe hears Sue talking in her sleep,he will not assume she has a reflex-ive intention towards him,and therefore not expect that she intends her utterance to have any effect on him—though she might unintentionally keep him awake.There are innumerable mental,emotional,and physical effects that speakers might wish to pro-duce,for instance persuading Hearer to an opinion,intimidating Hearer,alerting Hearer of danger,getting Hearer to do something by means of a suggestion,a hint, a request,or a command.Speaker tailors the utterance to suit Hearer,taking into ac-count the presumed common ground11and what s/he knows or guesses about HearerÕs ability to understand the message s/he wants to convey.
10There is input here from Recanati(1987).
11As defined in Allan(2001).
The fact that declaratives potentially have truth values is the principal way to pos-itively identify them(which is why they are said to beÔassertiveÕ,cf.Quirk et al., 1985;Wierzbicka,1988;Lunn,1995;Palmer,2001,2003).In English,T[U]can be glossed It is true/false that U.A declarative illocution is the PI(the primary illocu-tion)and not the illocutionary point of an utterance.This is clear from declaratives that issue directives,as in(26).
26. a.IÕm asking what your name is.
b.IÕm telling you to stop making that noise!
In fact,there are few illocutionary points that cannot be achieved using a declarative. Performatives(cf.Austin,1963,1975;Allan,1994a)like those in(27)have the pri-mary illocution of a declarative.
27. a.I promise to be good.
b.You are prohibited from smoking.
Gazdar(1981)assumes that performative clauses have only one illocutionary force:the main verb expresses the illocutionary point directly.But analysis of(28) makes this impossible:its primary illocution—like that of every performative clause—is,by definition,declarative(Cohen,1964;Lewis,1970;Bach and Harnish, 1979).
28.I promise to go there tomorrow.
The primary illocution is:‘‘S28[the speaker of(28)]is saying that S28promises to go there tomorrow.’’This is not the illocutionary point of(28),however.S28is using this primary illocution as a vehicle for a further illocution to be read offthe performative verb,namely:S28reflexively intends the(primary)declarative to be a reason for H28[the hearer of(28)]to believe that S28undertakes and intends (i.e.S28promises)to go there tomorrow.There is no further inference to draw,so this is the illocutionary point of(28).Speaker has no choice but to make a promise indirectly by means of a declarative;the grammar of English determines the matter.
What additional evidence is there that performatives are declaratives in primary illocution as well as form?First,there is the obvious similarity between(28)and(29).
29.I promised to go there tomorrow.
Unlike(28),which is in the present tense and has the illocutionary point of a prom-ise,(29)is past tense(which violates the definitions of performative clauses)and has the illocutionary point of a statement(or report)about a promise made in the past. The primary illocution of(29)is‘‘S29is saying that S29promised to go there tomor-row.’’This is not the only parallel with(28),because H29will interpret(29)(subcon-sciously,and not in so many words)as(30).。