9. Pragmatic types of sentences in terms of Speech Act Theory

9.1. Sentence Vs Utterance. Whereas grammar deals with abstract static entities such as sen­tences (in syntax) and propositions (in semantics), pragmatics deals with verbal acts or performances which take place in par­ticular situations, in time. In this respect, pragmatics deals with language at a more concrete level than grammar. There is another sense in which the word 'utterance' can be used in pragmatics: it can refer to the product of a verbal act, rather than to the verbal act itself. For instance, the words Would you please be quiet? spoken with a polite rising intonation, might be described as a sentence, or as a question, or as a request. How­ever, it is convenient to reserve terms like sentence and question for grammatical entities derived from the language system, and to reserve the term utterance for instances of such entities, identified by their use in a particular situation. Hence an utterance may be a sentence-instance, or sentence-token; but strictly speaking, it cannot be a sentence. In this second sense, utterances are the el­ements whose meaning we study in pragmatics. The meaning of utterance as a speech act and the meaning of utterance as a verbal action can be easily confused: there is a difference, but not a particu­larly marked one, between describing Would you please be quiet? as an utterance-product of a verbal act, and describing the act of uttering Would you please be quiet? as an utterance-speech act. Fortu­nately, the confusion can be alleviated, since it is generally con­venient to say that utterance-speech act and utterance-verbal action are illocutionary corresponded, in the sense of that term employed by Austin [Austin, 1962:100]. This means we can use illocutionary act or illocution for the utterance-action and can keep the term utterance for the lin­guistic product of that act.

The distinction between sentence and utterance is of fundamental importance to pragmatics. A sentence is an abstract theoretical entity defined within a theory of grammar, while an utterance is the issuance of a sentence, a sentence-analogue, or sentence-fragment, in actual context. Empirically, the relation between an utterance and a corresponding sentence may be quite obscure, but, as it is stressed by Bar-Hillel, it is customary to think of an utterance as the pairing of a sentence and context, namely the context in which the sentence was uttered [Bar-Hillel, 1971:78]. It is important, but in practice exceedingly difficult, to maintain this distinction at all times in the study of meaning. As an index of the difficulty, one may note that linguists frequently oscillate between assigning notions like presupposition, illocutionary force, truth condition to sentences or utterances, although important theoretical consequences follow from the choice. One may claim that the confusion here results from the need for yet further distinctions: thus J. Lyons advocates distinctions between text-sentences and system-sentences, sentence-types and sentence-tokens, utterance-types and utterance-tokens, and utterance-acts and utterance-products. [Lyons, 1977: 26]. For expositional reasons, the word utterance can be used in various ways, but where it is used to contrast with sentence it should be taken in the sense advocated by Bar-Hillel, as a sentence (or a string of sentences) paired with a context. And this is the sense relevant to the proposal that semantics is concerned with sentence-meaning, and pragmatics with utterance-meaning.

Many linguists, for example, George Lakoff, John Trim, Robin Lakoff, Emanuel Schegloff, and others accept this equation implicitly, but there are a number of problems with it. In the first place, in the (rare) cases where sentence-meaning exhausts utterance-meaning (i.e. where the speaker meant exactly what he said, no more, no less), the same content would be assigned both to semantics and pragmatics. In other words, we would need to restrict the notion of utterance-meaning in such a way that we subtract sentence-meaning, and in that case we are back to a definition of pragmatics by residue. But there are other problems: for there are aspects of sentence-meaning which, at least on truth-conditional or other narrow semantic theories, cannot be accounted for within semantic theory. Such aspects are conventional but non-truth-conditional elements of sentence-meaning [Lakoff,1982:321].

Within the pragmatic paradigm, the system of language should be studied in its functioning. Sentence, as a major concept of syntax, is the hub of the functional features of language and speech. Therefore one of the essential objectives of pragmatic syntax, which studies syntactic phenomena in the process of speech acts of communication, is the study of functional characteristics of a sentence. The study of functional or pragmatic features of sentences is an important domain of linguistics. Because mastering any language includes both language competence (ability of building up sentences correctly) and communicative competence (ability of using sentences correctly in speech acts to achieve necessary communicative results).

While structural description of a sentence, aimed at revealing a generating model, e.i. the order in which the sentence generating must proceed, results in setting up structural types of sentences, communicative description, aimed at the relationships between communicative type of sentence and the goal of communication, includes pragmatically relevant structural and semantic peculiarities of sentences. From the communicative point of view sentences differ by their communicative goal which is a characteristic feature of any sentence as a syntactic unit. For instance, the difference between interrogative and declarative sentences shows the difference between pragmatic types of these sentences. So, communicative goal can be accepted as a linguistically oriented criterion for differenciation of pragmatic types of sentences.

9.2. PRAGMATIC TYPES OF SENTENCES. Sentences are means of implementation of different speech acts which were elaborated by different societies in the course of historic development. In English, according to J. Austin, there is a great deal of verbs to denote various and different speech acts, for instance: to accuse, to bet, to bless, to boast, to vow, to entreat, to express intention, to lament, to pledge, to postulate, to report, to request, to welcome, to declare, to proclaim, to announce, to suggest, to hint, to imply, and many others.

Being used as means of verbalization of different speech acts, sentences correlate with certain communicative goal of a speaker, or a communicative proposition. The meaning of a propositional act is not reduced to the meaning of a propositional content it includes. One and the same proposition may enter into different speech acts. For example, "I shall come tomorrow" may be interpreted as a promise, a threat, a warning, a planned action or information. A speech act understanding, ensuring an adequate reaction, presupposes a correct interpretation of its illocutionary force. The latter somehow or rather interacts with proposition. For instance, motives and obligations may include only propositions relating to the future plan. Their purpose is to create such a state of things that would correspond to the meaning of proposition. They are directed from a propositional content to reality.

So, in terms of linguistic pragmatics, uttering a particular sentence, the speaker may have different communicative goals. To put it another way, the sentence may have different illocutionary forces, and hence - different cognitive meanings. So, semantic structure of a sentence includes a pragmatic component and thus consists of a pragmatic component and a proposition. Pragmatic component reflects communicative goal of a sentence; proposition – its cognitive content. Pragmatic type of a sentence is identified according to the character of its pragmatic component. One and the same proposition may be found in sentences with different communicative goals. The pragmatic component can be presented in the following way: “I (hereby) + verb (identifying the illocutionary force of the utterance) + the addressee”. The verb which characterizes the relationship between addressee and addresser can be called a performative verb. For instance, He is right in fact, with taking into account the illocutionary force of the utterance means that I (hereby) state that he is right. I’ll do it. - I (hereby) promise you that I’ll do it. And so on, and so forth.

Differences between the pragmatic types of sentences are not relevant to the differences between pragmatic components. Though there is no completed list of speech acts, some differential criteria are determined in modern linguistics. According to J. Searle, for instance, there are more than ten differential criteria, including illocutionary point, determining the variety of speech acts and, consequently, the variety of pragmatic types of sentences ( e.g. the different illocutionary goals of order and lament); relation between speech and reality (e.g. illocutionary goals of statement and promise: what is promised is not existed at the moment of speaking); attitude to the speaker’s and addressee’s interests (e.g. congratulation and sympathy; promise and threat) and others.

Far from being a completed list of pragmatic types of sentences determined in modern linguistic pragmatics can be presented as following: constatives, promissives, menassives, performatives, directives, commissives, requestives, indicatives, questitives, compliments and others. We consider some of them.

1. Constatives. The communicative proposition of constatives is statement, e.g. Water is a liquid. According to communicative proposition constatives are characterized by the lack of interrogative and inducive forms due to the incompatibility of communicative proposition of interrogative and inducive sentences and the type of illocutionary force of constatives.

2. Promissives. Promissives as well as constatives are declarative sentences. Their communicative proposition constrains their cognitive proposition as the actions described in promissives always belong to the future and the only tense-form used in promissives is the future tense-form. Speaking in terms of semantic syntax, or semantic roles, this constrain determines the following semantic and structural features: the subject always performed the semantic role of Agent; the predicate is always expressed by the verb in indicative mood, e.g. I’ll do, make, come, read etc. Such promissives as I shall be ignored or I shall be punished are not possible. So, a sentence can be classified as a promissive in case if the fulfillment of an action described in the sentence depends on the author of an utterance. One more peculiar feature of promissive is that the speaker is interested in the fulfillment of the action described in the sentence.

3. Menassives. The communicative proposition of menassives is threat, for instance, If you don’t come in time, you will be punished. If you fret the money away, I’ll beat you up. Give me your money, or I’ll shoot! Though promissives and menassives belong to different pragmatic types of sentences, they have some common features: future time reference, forecasted analysis of what is stated, the same set of semantic roles. But the addressee of these speech acts is not interested in the fulfillment of the action. The author of this type of speech acts does not guarantee the fulfillment of the action, and can threaten by the event which does not deepens on him, for instance: “He will pay you!” Therefore there is no constrains for menassives as to the set of semantic roles.

4. Directives. The communicative proposition of directives is direct inducement of the addressee to perform some action: Don’t cry! Stand still! Get out! Come here! Take your seat! Open your notebooks! etc.Sentences of this pragmatic type are aimed at the inducement of the addressee to do some actions. Verbs, used in sentences of this pragmatic type, are mainly the verbs of action. The action described by the verb in directives are compulsory for the addressee, as the social roles of the addresser and the addressee in directives are not equal.

5. Requestives. Requestives as well as directives aimed at inducing the addressee to perform an action. The action expressed by the verb in this type of sentences is not compulsory for the addressee because the social roles of the addressee and the addresser are either equal, or the social role of the addresser is lower than the social role of the addressee. So, directives and requestives are in complimentary relations. These two types of sentences differ by prosodic characteristics. Because the intonation of order is different from the intonation of request. Such words as please, could, would, let’s and the like are typical illocutionary signs of requestives: Could You close the window? Would You kindly shut the window? Please, be attentive. Please, go away etc.

6. Questitives. Questitives are traditional interrogative sentences. Questitives like directives and requestives are aimed at inducing the addressee to perform an action. The difference is: while directives induce to perform any actions, including speech actions (for instance, Go, (please)! Get out! etc.); questitives aimed at performing speech actions only: What time is it now? What is your name? How old are you? etc. The most striking feature of questitives is that the informational potential of the author of questitives and the addressee is different. The use of questitives shows this difference. Using the questitives, the author is trying to eliminate this difference by getting the unswer to the question, e.i, the respective information from the addressee. questitives focuses on the lack of information and create the psychological tension, which can be relieved by the addressee’s answer. Questitives are characterized by interrogative features, intonation is one of the most important of them. It is widely observed that interrogative sentences may express in different situations a whole variety of illocutionary forces: disbelief, surprise, uncertainty, doubt, supposition, disagreement, reusal, dissatisfaction, annoyance, disapproval, agreement, consent, suggestion, offer, invitation, request, command, threat, greeting, etc.

7. Compliments. This pragmatic type of sentences has a heterogeneous nature. The choice of a certain subtype of compliments depends on the extralinguistic factors. In general terms, compliment can be defined as an expression of the speaker’s thought aimed at motivation of all the positive features of the addressee. Modern English has a great deal of means to express a compliment. The whole corpus of these means can be classified into three main groups: 1. The communicative proposition of the first group is positive attitude and positive evaluation. It can be expressed by the following verbs: to approve, to endorse, to sanction, to accredit, to certify, for instance: The committee has endorsed our proposals. The institution got accredited as a language school. You have to get these accounts certified by an auditor. My parents now approve of her marriage. 2. The communicative proposition of sentences of the second group is characterized by observing the Principle of Politeness in positive evaluation, stressing the high level of positive evaluation. It can be expressed by the following verbs: to commend, to recommend, to applaud, to compliment, for instance: Your work has been highly commended. We applaud the decision to go ahead with the new building. My friend complimented me on my new hairstyle. 3. The communicative proposition of the third group of compliments can be expressed by the following verbs: to praise, to extol, to eulogize, to laud, to acclaim, for instance: The Mayor praised the rescue team for their courage [LD, 2005:1105]. Senators laud conservative First for working across party line in the past and hope for more in the future [USA Today, 34]. The poem eulogizes the bravery of the nation’s warriors [LD, 2005:466]. Compliments of the third type are characterized by the mass expressing of praise and the high social role of the praised subject. Sentence types do not unambiguously signal illocutionary forces. Any of the illocutionary forces can be conveyed by any of the sentence types. Conversely, any one of the sentence types can convey many and various illocutionary forces. To demonstrate this, William Downes [1998: 381-382] considers the directive class. The case of getting someone to do something. All sentence types may be used: declaratives, imperatives, interrogatives. A sentence literally conveys the illocutionary force conventionally associated with is communicative type: declarative sentence =assertive force, interrogative sentence = question force, imperative sentence =directive force.

9.3. ILLOCUTIONARY FORCES OF NON-CLAUSAL UNITS. Non-clausal units, usually but not exclusively noun phrases, occur frequently in speech, mostly in informal conversation. We can do no more than give some examples with their illocutionary force. Exclamatory noun phrases modified by a restrictive relative clause (in most instances with the zero relative) generally express disapproval: The clothes she wears! [cf: What clothes she wears!] The things they get up to! The way he complained about the food! The fuss they made! Also expressing scornful disapproval are exclamatory phrases consist­ing of a noun phrase, generally a pronoun, followed by and another noun phrase with a matching possessive pronoun: You and your statistics! [I deplore the way you so frequently resort to statistics]. The subjective case is less commonly used for the first pronoun: Him and his malicious gossip! Pat and her childish hobbies! Exclamatory prepositional phrases beginning with Of all express strong disapproval: Of all the impudence! Of all the stupid things to say! Exclamatory noun or adjective phrases may express approval or disapproval: Charming couple!Dirty place! Stupid! Excellent performance! Very interesting! Poor thing! (A) good idea! Disgusting! Big baby! ['What a helpless person you are!'] Notice that articles are often omitted. If the phrase is directed at the person addressed, it may be prefaced by you, e.g.: You angel! ['You're an angel!'], You poor thing! To express a more familiar and more affectionate-relationship my is used: My poor baby!, My silly boy! Noun phrases may have the force of commands or requests. Where appropriate, an adverbial such as please may accompany the noun phrase: Attention! Patience! A pound of butter, please. Action stations! Lights! Another coffee, if you don't mind. Taxi! Phone! Your turn. Just a drop more! The letter, please. Scalpel! My hat, please! The door! Scissors, somebody! Next slide, please. In some instances, the interpretation depends on the situational context. For example. The door! might mean 'Shut the door!', 'Watch the door!', 'Open the door!', or even 'Leave the room!'

Noun phrases may have the force of offers or invitations, particularly when they are spoken with rising intonation: Cigarette? My apartment? More coffee, anyone? Another round? Again the interpretation may depend on the situational context. Alternative questions may have the same force: tea or coffee?, My place or yours? Noun and adjective phrases with rising intonation may have the force of inquiries. They may function as yes-no questions: New hat? Good flight? Boring? Your book? Any luck, Ron? Tasty? Next slide ? False alarm ? In place of these questions, it is possible to use a noun phrase followed by a tag question, eg: New hat, is it? Good flight, was it? They may also function as alternative questions:Your car or your mother's? Hot or Cold? or as an inquiry having the force of wh-questions: Your name? ['Your name is ... ?'] Your age? Your rank? Your occupation? These can be analyzed as corresponding to, for example, What is your name? Tell me your name. Could you tell me your name ?

Noun phrases may make assertions, conveying information: No news, No luck. That way ['They went that way.'] Business call ['The phone call was a business call.'] (ix) Exclamatory noun phrases may convey a warning: Fire! [noun] The police! Timber! Avalanche! Exclamatory negative noun phrases may convey a prohibition: No smoking! No more noise! No pushing! Noun phrases (with possible expansions) may merely convey soci­ability: Nice day again. Good weather we're having. Lovely evening. Exclamatory noun phrases may be self-addressed, expressing the hearer's alarm or frustration after a period of forgetfulness: The cake! ['I should have taken the cake out of the oven.'] My husband's birthday! ['I've forgotten my husband's birthday.'] My interview!