performative

(adj./n.) A term used by the philosopher J. L. Austin (1911–60), and now found in GRAMMATICAL and SEMANTIC analysis, to refer to a type of SENTENCE where an action is ‘performed’ by virtue of the sentence having been uttered, e.g. I apologize, I baptize you . . . , I promise . . . The original distinction was drawn between performative utterances and CONSTATIVE UTTERANCES: the latter are descriptive statements which can be analyzed in terms of truth-values; performatives, on the other hand, are expressions of activity which are not analyzable in truth-value terms. Performative verbs (apologize, etc.) have a particular significance in SPEECH-ACT theory, as they mark the ILLOCUTIONARY force of an utterance in an explicit way. Some TRANSFORMATIONAL analysts have even proposed a ‘performative analysis’ of sentences, such that a performative VERB is present in UNDERLYING structure, e.g. an underlying (deletable) verb such as ‘I assert that . . .’; but the advantages of adopting such a procedure have still to be fully explored.