Direct vs. indirect speech acts

As we noted, the three most common things that speakers do by speaking are: (i) making STATEMENTS (asserting or denying the truth of a proposition); (ii) asking QUESTIONS (questioning the truth of a proposition, or asking for additional information about a proposition); and (iii) giving COMMANDS. Most languages have specific grammatical patterns that are used to indicate which of these actions the speaker in tends to perform: DECLARATIVE for statements; INTERROGATIVE for questions; and IMPERATIVE for commands. These three sentence types correspond to the MAJOR MOOD categories. The primary function of each major mood category is shown in (1).

The table in (1) shows the typical or expected sentence type (i.e. grammatical form) that would be used for expressing a given pragmatic function. DIRECT SPEECH ACTS are those in which this expected correlation is preserved: the form of the sentence matches the purpose, or intended force, of the utterance. Some examples are given in (2).

However, speakers do not always choose the expected sentence type to express their intended function. Sometimes a speaker uses some other form to create a desired effect. INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS are those in which there is a mismatch between the sentence type and the intended force. Some examples are given in (3). ARHETORICAL QUESTION is a very common type of indirect speech act which involves the use of the interrogative form for some purpose other than asking questions, as in (3a) and (3c).

In Commands (imperative sentences) and Questions (interrogative sentences), we will focus on the grammatical features of imperative and interrogative sentence patterns; in Negation we will discuss patterns of sentence negation. But first, in Basic word order, we make some general observations about variation in word order, since word order is often significant in distinguishing one type of sentence from another.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

أكاديمية التطوير الإداري تنظّم دورة في اللغة الفارسية لعدد من ملاكات العتبة العباسية المقدسة

استعدادًا لافتتاحه.. المشرف على قسم الشؤون الطبية يجري جولة في مركز السيد جعفر الحلي للخدمات الطبية.

الهيأة العليا لإحياء التراث تقيم الدورة العلمية التخصصية لكتاب في رحاب العقيدة

سماحة السيد الصافي يؤكد ضرورة تنمية الموارد المالية لدائرة التقاعد الوطنية وتعظيمها

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

العلاج بالماء البارد.. باحثون يكشفون فوائده الصحية

من دون صالة رياضية.. عادة بسيطة لتحسين الصحة وخسارة الوزن

لصحة القلب وتفادي السرطان.. استهلك هذا النوع من الطعام

دراسة تحذر من خطر شرب القهوة في أكواب البلاستيك

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

إنجاز طبي تاريخي.. جراحة قلب بلا شق في الصدر

اليابان.. مراحيض توفر فحص للحالة الصحية عبر "تحليل البراز" !

اختراق واسع لمنصة "إنستغرام".. ونشر بيانات على "الدارك ويب"

علماء يحذرون: هكذا سيفنى كوكب الأرض

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Yes–No questions

Questions (interrogative sentences)

Commands (imperative sentences)

Basic word order

Special sentence types

A note on “impersonal constructions”

Tense, Aspect, and Modality Conclusion

Modality

Mood

Combinations of tense and aspect

Perfect vs. perfective

Lexical aspect