Alston expands on the work of J.L. Austin and John Searle, categorizing illocutionary acts into five primary types:
Meaning is determined by a sentence's potential to play the role a speaker intended. Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning
'ing). When a speaker utters a sentence, they take responsibility for certain conditions being true (e.g., in a request to open a window, the speaker is responsible for the condition that the window is actually closed). Taxonomy of Speech Acts Alston expands on the work of J
A sentence like "It's locked" has a basic meaning because it is usable to perform the act of asserting that something is locked. When a speaker utters a sentence, they take
Attempts to get the listener to do something, such as requesting or commanding.
Acts that commit the speaker to future action, like promising or vowing.
Utterances that express a psychological state, such as apologizing or congratulating.