Thus we find that almost any illocu

Thus we find that almost any illocutionary act has a predicate word describing it. For example, the act of accusing is describe by the English predicate accuse. The parallel is obvious. If an act is significant in a society ( as illocutionary acts are ) then it is not surprising that the society should have coined a word to describe it. Just as illocutionary acts can be described with English words and sentences, so can their felicity conditions.
There is an essential circularity that are involved in when dong semantic. We want to formulate precise statements about the felicity conditions on illocutionary acts, and we must to do in English ( or some other language ), using English words and sentence. But another concern of semantic is to make precise statements about the meaning of English word and sentences. Thus, for instance, formulating sincerity conditions help us to form a precise picture of how utterance meaning works, but simultaneously it sheds light on the meaning of the word sincere itself.

D Direct and Indirect Illocutions

The main problem we will concentrate on in this unit is that of trying to discover some semantic way telling from the from of an uttered sentence what illocutionary act is performed in uttered it. There must be some system, because language users are able to tell with great (though not total ) reliability from the from of an uttered sentence what illocutionary act is performed.
The interesting question is. How do English speaker extract from the specific words used in “ would you like a cup of coffee?”, the information that this utterance definitely is an act of offering, enquiring, and asking, and that it is not an act of thanking, working, or apologizing? We pursue this question below, but one reservation should be mentioned straight away, this is that the facts are not always as clear as in the example just given.
Despite the existence of such unclear cases, in which there may be doubt about what illocutionary act actually is carried out in an utterance , we shall concentrate on the clear cases as far as possible. Note that one utterance may have several illocutions at the some time.
The direct illocutions of an utterance is the illocutions most directly indicated by a literal reading of the grammatical from and vocabulary of the sentence uttered. the indirect illocution of an utterance is any further illocution the utterance may have.

Example : The direct illocution of ”Can you pass the talk?”is an enquiry about the hearer’s ability to pass the salt. The indirect illocution is a request that the hearer pass the talk.

The difference between direct and indirect illocutions is seen through the fact that a pedantic or deliberately unhelpful reply can be given to an utterance which has both kinds of illocutions. For example, in reply to “I must ask you to leave “ one might say, thwarting the intentions of the first. Must you.”
The nation of speakers being helpful in conversation is important. Returning now to our mine theme, the search for a correct statement of the systematic relationship between the form of an uttered sentence and the illocution carried out in uttering it, it is clear that for direct illocutions the relationship is quite straightforward this follows for our definition of direct illocution. The immediate illocutions tank now facing us is to try to find some systematic way of relating the indirect illocutions of utterances in the direct illocutions . Put simply, the question facing us is this : By what rules can a language use work out the indirect illocution of an utterance from its direct illocution?” for example, if you ask me if I can pass the salt, how do I know that you are requesting me to pass the salt rather enquiring about my physical ability to pass it?” The notion of felicity condition turns out to be crucial in answering this question.