LING 3P94 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Truth Condition, Presupposition, Locutionary Act
Document Summary
Developed as a reaction to truth-conditional semantics in philosophy. Judgement of true or false is not the only way to study meaning. Theoretical tenet: we use language to do things as well as to say things. Speech act is the basic unit of communication; knowledge of speech acts is part of linguistic competence. Deals more with language usage rather than use; usage refers to conventional use we all agree upon, the norm, whereas use is an individual case of using something. Sentence is meaningless unless verifiable as true or false. A statement states a fact either truly or falsely. Can be applied to presupposition that it is your birthday. I baptize thee in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost . I baptize thee serves as an utterance but it is also a social act officially adding another member to the catholic religion.
