The reflexivity of explicit performatives

THEORIA 66 (2009): 283-299 The Reflexivity of Explicit Performatives * Cristina C ORREDOR Received: 8.8.2008 Final Version: 25.2.2009 BIBLID [0495-4548 (2009) 24: 66; pp. 283-299] ABSTRACT: The aim of this contribution is to propose a natural implementation of the reflexive-referential theory advanced by Perry 2001 that aims at accounting for the reflexive character of explicit performative utterances. This is accomplished by introducing a reflexive-performative constraint on explicit performatives. Keywords: explicit performatives, reflexive-referential theory, reflexivity, speech acts, Austin, Perry. Introduction The reflexive-referential theory for ‘I’ has already been invoked by Jary 2007 within the framework of a theory on performatives. My aim here is to defend that it is possible to respect the intuition originally present in Austin’s work (Austin 1962, 1979) and to claim that, whenever we use a declarative sentence that embeds an explicit performative prefix, it is precisely in saying something that we do something with words, as something different from asserting something. This consequence can be accounted for provided that we, together with the conventional meaning of the performative sentence in Austin’s normal form, take into consideration a reflexive-performative constraint that, as I will try to argue, is present in our uses of explicit performative prefixes. In this elaboration I will be guided by analyses developed within the framework of the reflexive-referential theory, trying to extend it to the above-mentioned case. In the final part of this contribution I will try to address a possible objection. 1. Alternative accounts for performative prefixes The intuition underlying the present proposal is that utterances that embed explicit performative prefixes, such as “I promise you that p”, cannot be adequately accounted for if we consider the utterance to be a direct assertive, from which the performative force would be obtained through some pragmatic inference. This account, nevertheless, has been defended with good arguments by several authors 1 . According to this view, which we will term the assertive account of explicit performative utterances, the * A previous version of this work was presented at the XVIII th edition of the Inter-University Workshop on Philosophy and Cognitive Science (devoted to John Perry’s work) held in Madrid, 22-24 th of April, 2008. I am indebted to the audience and two anonymous referees for valuable comments and suggestions. This work is part of the research projects HUM2007-30640-E/FISO and FFI2008-06421-C0202. 1 A prominent representative of this position, whose statement is one of the earliest of the kind in question here, is Ginet 1979. Cristina C ORREDOR Theoria 66 (2009): 283-299 284 primary meaning of these utterances is that of an assertive. (When the speaker says “I promise that p”, she is asserting to be performing the action, therefore representing or describing her own act). Only a pragmatic inferential mechanism would allow the interlocutor to derive, in conformity with the speaker’s intentions, the performative force of the utterance, i.e. the information that the speaker intends to perform, by means of uttering it, the act (a particular instance of a type of action) asserted in this very utterance. Therefore, explicit performative utterances are analysed as indirect speech acts. 2 This thesis can be formulated as follows: Thesis of the assertiveness of explicit performative utterances: Performatives are indirect speech acts, whose force is pragmatically inferred by the hearer from direct assertives that embed the corresponding performative prefixes. This position can be illustrated as follows. When a speaker declares “I recommend you to leave”, she would be asserting what she is doing, namely recommending the hearer to leave. By means of her asserting that, she would be indirectly communicating her intention to recommend to the hearer that she leave. Here, a mechanism of “inference compressed by precedent” (Bach & Harnish 1992: 98) guides the hearer to obtain, from the linguistically codified semantic meaning of the corresponding performative verb, the intended force. This reformulation of speech act theory by Bach and Harnish can be said to be highly influenced by Grice’s intention based and inferentialist view of communication 3 . In contradistinction to this account and following Austin’s intuition (developed later on by Searle 1969, 1975), it can be said that an utterance of “I recommend you that p” has performative force, whenever it has it, in a principled and direct manner, since in the considered performative case the utterance is equivalent to the performance of a certain action, precisely in virtue of the utterance itself. This is so because part of the meaning of performative utterances is irreducibly pragmatic, not analysable in truth-conditional terms. This pragmatic meaning has been called the illocutionary force of the utterance. The so-called performative prefix ‘I promise’ makes this force explicit. We can express this view as follows: Austin’s Performativity Thesis (Thesis of the irreducibility of the force): In their prototypical use, explicit performative sentences (structurally characterised by the following features: the first-person pronoun, the simple-present tense and the possibility of inserting the adverb ‘hereby’) convey an irreducibly pragmatic force 2 They write, “On our account, a performative sentence when used performatively is used literally, directly to make a statement and indirectly to perform the further speech act of the type (an order, say) named by the performative verb (‘order’)” (Bach & Harnish 1992: 98) 3 Cf. Sbisa 2002: 422. Nevertheless, Grice himself seems to have held a number of different ideas concerning how to account for illocutionary forces. A reading of Grice suggests that the inferences which yield these forces are connected with further specifications of the central speech acts of asserting, asking, and commanding (Grice 1989: 121-22). Notwithstanding this, there are other passages where Grice suggests that the implied (illocutionary) meaning is derived from conventionalizations of generalised conversational implicatures or implied by presupposition. The Reflexivity of Explicit Performatives Theoria 66 (2009): 283-299 285 whose effect is to perform an action, thus allowing the speaker to do something in saying something. Against the thesis that attributes a direct assertive force to performatives, Austin always insisted that when a speaker performs an illocutionary act, she is not making a statement that describes her own act; rather, she is performing it 4 . A third, intermediate position between the assertive and the performative accounts is that held by Recanati 1987, 2007 and Searle 1989. Both have proposed to interpret explicit performative utterances as declarations. Searle claims that performatives are declarations and that in declaring something, the speaker is at the same time making a true assertion. 5 Recanati claims that, in uttering an explicit performative, the speaker performs two illocutionary acts: she declares that she is performing a certain act, and she performs it. But, whereas the declaration is performed directly, the second act, the one that the speaker declares to be performing, can be performed only indirectly. This double illocution by means of a single declaration is possible because Recanati takes the declaration (the first, direct act) to be force-neutral. What distinguishes Recanati’s account from the assertive one is that he does not consider the indirect act to be conversationally implicated in a Gricean sense; as he puts it, “the indirect act is ‘entailed’ by the direct act of self-referential declaration” (Recanati 1987: 175). The mechanism that makes possible the entailment from the force-neutral declaration “I order you that p” to the illocution (that the speaker effectively orders the hearer that p) appeals to an additional postulate. Recanati claims that in order to perform an illocutionary act it suffices to get the hearer to recognise the intention one has that, in virtue of the utterance, it be the case that one performs the declared action (one orders the hearer that p, say). 6 And the best mechanism to convey this intention is the descriptive meaning of the performative verb. In the declarative accounts, as in the assertive one, these authors assume that the linguistically codified, conventional meaning has to be (and only can be) analysed in terms of its contribution to the utterance truth-conditions, henceforth the illocutionary force must be obtained by some different, inferential means. 4 For instance, he writes, “the verbs which seem, on grounds of vocabulary, to be specially performative verbs serve the special purpose of making explicit (which is not the same as stating or describing) what precise action it is that is being performed by the issuing of the utterance” (Austin 1962: 61). 5 The fact that performatives, as declarations, institute new facts and so doing become true is explained by Searle in the following terms: “Since the facts created by linguistic declarations are linguistic facts, we don't need an extralinguistic institution to perform them. Language is itself an institution, and it is sufficient to empower speakers to perform such declarations as promising to come and see someone or ordering someone to leave the room.” (Searle 1989: 549-50) 6 “As a matter of fact, it is not exactly the ‘intention to order the hearer to come’ that is fulfilled as soon as it is manifested; it is the intention to perform this act by means of the very utterance that expresses that intention” (Recanati 1987: 172). Also the assertive account involves reflexive intentions of a special kind. At some point Bach and Harnish 1992 write, “The statement (...) informs the hearer of the promise; it is the utterance, in virtue of the intention with which it is made (that of expressing a commitment that his utterance obligate him in a certain way to the hearer), which constitutes the promise” (Ibid., p. 100). However, in this case, it is not at all clear how the second, reflexive intention is to be fulfilled. More on that is discussed below. Cristina C ORREDOR Theoria 66 (2009): 283-299 286 Thesis of performative utterances as declarations (Recanati’s version): Performatives are declarations, whose performative indicator is force-neutral; when the speaker declares to perform a certain act, her declaration at the same time entails the performance of this act. This is accomplished by means of getting the hearer to recognise the speaker’s intention that, by means of her utterance, it be the case that she performs the declared action (Recanati 1987; cf. also 2007). Getting the hearer to recognise the speaker’s reflexive intention is accomplished, in its turn and in the commonest case, by means of the descriptive meaning of the performative verb. (We will come back to this idea below). A strong argument in favour of the assertive and the declarative accounts is that they do not compel one to consider different linguistic resources to interpret an utterance, depending on whether it is assertive or performative, nor to maintain separated analyses for the two available uses of the same expression-type ‘I promise’, depending on whether it is an irreducibly performative use (to the effect that the speaker acquires a commitment before the hearer) or an assertive use in atemporal present (as in “Each time I arrive too late, I promise to wake up earlier next time”). In both cases, the conventional, linguistically encoded meaning would contribute to the truth conditions of the utterance. And the completion of these (by means of pragmatic inferential processes 7 ) would yield the ‘input’ of a complete proposition from which to derive, now again through pragmatic inference (not necessarily Gricean), the performative force of the utterance at issue here. The arguments against this assertive or declarative accounts appeal to strong intuitions and to the asymmetries that can be highlighted between the assertive and the performative uses. Following this second line of argumentation, some authors have defended an account of performatives as acts of showing. They argue that an utterance embedding an explicit performative prefix (plus, maybe, the adverb ‘hereby’ or other locutions) is an act of showing (Green 2000, 2007; Jary 2007). This shared view does not prevent, nevertheless, some differences between authors. Their theses can be formulated as follows: Thesis of the force as an act of showing (two versions): (i) Performatives are simultaneously assertions and acts of showing. Moreover, the act of showing, that is simultaneous to the assertion, shows a commitment by the speaker before the hearer (Green 2000). 7 An anonymous referee raises the question whether these pragmatic processes are restricted to propositional ones. It is hard to find an explicit claim about that by the proponents of the assertive and declarative accounts. Nevertheless, it seems to me that this is how one might interpret a statement like the following, “In saying ‘I promise’ performatively, one obviously says that he promises, but in so doing he does not perform an illocutionary act of assertion or whatever: what he performs besides the illocutionary act of promising I shall call, following Austin, a locutionary act ― the locutionary act of ‘saying that’” (Recanati 1980: 206) The Reflexivity of Explicit Performatives Theoria 66 (2009): 283-299 287 Alternatively, (i) Performatives are primarily acts of showing. Speakers are showing what they are doing (and thereby doing it), but they are not simultaneously asserting, and what is shown is the very act that is so performed (Jary 2007). Jary has argued that the analysis advanced by Perry’s reflexive-referential theory for the indexical ‘I’ can be implemented to argue in favour of the performative intuition, and against assertive accounts of explicit performatives. He states his proposal taking into account two conditions: (i) given the function fulfilled by the personal pronoun ‘I’ as analysed by Perry (particularly, its reflexivity); and (ii) given the nature of the act denoted by the corresponding performative verb (to promise, say), he draws the conclusion that the more accessible interpretation for the utterance must be the performative and not the assertive one. In his own words: Thus, the association of the character of ‘I’ and the nature of the act denoted will make the hypothesis that the speaker does indeed intend to perform that act (and to do so by showing that he is doing so) highly accessible, so that strong contextual or linguistic clues will be needed to override this hypothesis. (Jary 2007: 225) It seems to me that the kind of implementation proposed by Jary is insufficient to support both his criticism and his alternative proposal. I agree with his refusal to consider performative utterances as parasitic with respect to direct assertives. Nevertheless, I see two problems in his account. Firstly, his appeal to Perry’s analysis on the reflexivity of ‘I’ does not seem to be sufficient to give priority to the performative account. For this very analysis, in identical terms, is applicable to any use of the same utterance, even if this use is the assertive, descriptive one or any other distinct from the conventionally associated one 8 . Secondly, his reference to what is “the nature of the act denoted” remains unexplained. If what is meant is that the act can be performed in virtue of the utterance itself, this ‘can’ is what on my view needs being elucidated. If this property of performatives is just assumed to be in force, it seems to me that we are still in need of some clarification 9 . Sharing with Jary a similar intuition, I think it possible to extend the reflexivereferential theory in such a way as to highlight an essential trait of explicit performatives: their reflexive-performative character. It would then become possible to show that it is precisely this reflexive-performative character what constraints (allows) that the utterance prompts by itself, when it is uttered in a context of communicative interaction, an action of a certain type. 8 It would be different if, as Jary holds (personal communication, 27 May 2008), appropriately interpreting assertoric uses of these sentences were not reliant on representing the speaker under the mode of presentation associated with the character of ‘I’ (i.e. qua the speaker of that sentence). Nevertheless, it seems to me that in such a case it should be explained how this mode of presentation for ‘I’ can be somewhat suspended, and what does/does not make it to be most salient. 9 Jary has pointed out (personal communication, 27 May 2008) that his aim was not to give an account of what ‘performativity’ is. He rather took the notion of illocutionary force for granted and sought to explain both what makes the explicit-performative sentence schema apt to perform two acts (asserting and performing the act denoted), and how hearers manage to disambiguate between the two. Cristina C ORREDOR Theoria 66 (2009): 283-299 288 This idea is not new, since the peculiar reflexivity that is characteristic of performatives has been identified and taken into account by a number of scholars, some of whom we are going to mention and briefly consider in the next section. Their accounts, nevertheless, differ from each other. It seems advisable to first examine how performative reflexivity has been understood, in order to reach some conclusions concerning its nature and how to integrate it within a theoretical model. 2. Reflexivity of explicit performatives According to the irreducibility of the illocutionary force thesis, when a speaker says “I recommend you that p”, she is not stating or describing her own act; she is performing it, and she is performing it precisely in saying or in virtue of her words. What kind of reflexivity is at work here? 2.1. Performative reflexivity can be understood, firstly, as the consequence of applying a conventional or conventionalised procedure. Austin seems to have had this in mind when he invoked the existence of underlying procedures in speech, and such that they find expression by means of linguistic conventions ― or, rather, such that they incorporate saying certain words as a component part. In How to do things with words he writes that a speech act can be said to be “conventional in the sense that at least it could be made explicit by the performative formula” (Austin 1975: 103). Recanati 1987, following Strawson 1964, has proposed a widening of this property that requires a conventional, explicit performative formula, by just requiring that there be a conventional marker for the illocutionary force. (This criterion would allow the inclusion, among performatives, of certain speech acts that Austin had classified as perlocutions, e.g. to insult by means of using certain words). A criterion of identity for performatives is, then, that there exist some force-marker that can be considered linguistically codified and socially recognised. Yet the capability to perform an action in virtue of the utterance is founded, according to Austin, in the effective existence of regulated procedures, to the effect that saying certain words is equivalent to doing something. The drawback in this account has been repeatedly criticised, notably by Searle 1969. According to him, Austin uses as paradigmatic examples speech acts that obtain their force from a socially institutionalised background 10 . Yet it remains enigmatically unanswered what is happening in the case of speech acts that are not so institutionalised, where nevertheless the same force-reflexivity is operative, and where to say certain words is equivalent to performing a particular action 11 . 10 Paradigmatic examples of institutionalised speech acts are judicial sentences, the yes-statement in a wedding ceremony, baptising, and bequeathing a legacy. 11 In these cases, as argued below, the utterance of the words has a conventional effect on the interpersonal relationships of both interlocutors, accountable for in terms of the commitments that they undertake and bestow on each other. Nevertheless, it is not clear that the “accepted conventional procedure” (Austin 1962: 14) goes beyond the conventional meaning present in the performative prefix. This is what Searle 1969 tried to capture by means of constitutive rules. The Reflexivity of Explicit Performatives Theoria 66 (2009): 283-299 289 2.2. Performative reflexivity has also been accounted for in terms of self-verifiablity, a property only possessed by this type of utterances. Some authors, critical of Austin’s conventionalism, have argued that performatives are self-verifying assertions. According to this view, in saying what action she is performing the speaker effectively performs that action, and her utterance is true precisely by virtue of being uttered (Hedenius 1963 and Lewis 1970 are cited, in the literature, as precursors of this position). A strong argument against this account in what it has of ‘semanticising the force’ is due to Bach and Harnish. They write: To suppose that the self-referentiality of performative utterances is a consequence of the semantics of performative sentences would be to posit a linguistic anomaly, whereby the first person present tense form ‘I order’ would have a semantic feature different in kind from other forms, such as ‘You order’ or ‘I ordered’, indeed one that is not compositionally determined by the meanings of the words ‘I’ and ‘order’ (Bach & Harnish1992: 100, fn. 14). Thus, the requirements of semantic systematicity and compositionality seem to be violated if we adopt this view. A second argument against this understanding of performatives has been advanced by Recanati. He observes that performativity cannot be reduced to self-verifiability, since what counts for the speech act to have a particular force is not that it has the effect of bringing about the state of affairs that is its propositional content. He argues that it is an utterance’s meaning, not its actual consequences, what allows to characterise it as performative or not (cf. Recanati 1987: 170). I think that Recanati is right when he says that what determines the force is not the effect actually brought about by the words, in the sense that the so-called satisfaction conditions of the speech act be fulfilled (Searle 1969). The question at issue is what makes it the case that saying some words can be equivalent to performing an action. This remains unexplained, if we conceive reflexivity in terms of satisfaction conditions and, a fortiori, in terms of self-verifiability. By connecting the utterance with its effect, we do not illuminate how this effect has been achieved. The same happens if we try to remit the illocutionary force back to the semantic meaning of the corresponding performative verb. In this case, as Bach and Harnish observe, one had to explain why this property is present in some uses of the same verb and not in others; and, specially, how the performative verb contributes compositionally. 2.3. Performative reflexivity has been accounted for, thirdly, by recourse to the reflexive communicative intentions (in Grice’s sense). In the framework of Grice’s theory, the intention to produce a belief or other attitude by means (at least in part) of the recognition of this very intention is what has come to be called a reflexive communicative intention. This intention consists of performing an action with: (i) the intention to produce a belief in an audience, (ii) the intention that this effect be achieved, at least in part, by the audience’s recognition of the speaker’s intention, and (iii) the intention that the audience be aware of the speaker’s intentions (i) and (ii). Nevertheless, good arguments have been advanced against understanding performative reflexivity in the above suggested terms. Two of these deserve our attention, one against the sufficiency and another against the necessity of reflexive communicative intentions for the peculiar reflexivity of explicit performative utterances. Cristina C ORREDOR Theoria 66 (2009): 283-299 290 Against sufficiency, Recanati argues that the characteristic property of communicative intentions, in Grice’s sense, is that they are satisfied by merely being recognised. But, as he insists, in the case of a performative that is uttered with the intention of bringing about a particular state of affairs, the state of affairs denoted by the utterance must be the performing of a certain illocutionary act by means of the utterance itself (cf. Recanati 1987: 173; cf. also Recanati 2007: 54). Hence, according to this line of argumentation, for a speech act to be successful and to achieve a particular force, something more is needed than just the hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention. The speech act must be successful due to the speech act itself. We can conclude, therefore, that reflexive communicative intentions are not sufficient for the utterance to count as a performative with a particular force (for it to count as a promise, an order, etc.). But notice that here, as before, it remains unexplained what makes it the case that the speech act be successful precisely due to the speech act itself. We have not said, as yet, what makes it possible that a particular act be caused by a speech act as required. The second argument, now against the necessity of reflexive communicative intentions for performative reflexivity, is due to Green 2007. He has focused on speech acts by means of which the speaker does not intend to have any cognitive effect on the hearer. Paradigmatic examples of this are that of a person who thinks aloud, or that of a person who speaks aloud just to achieve a therapeutic effect on herself. In those cases, Green notices, reflexive communicative intentions are not necessary for speaker meaning, since the latter can occur without the intention to produce any beliefs in an audience. Therefore, “producing a cognitive effect on an audience (...) is not a necessary condition for speaker meaning (Green 2007: 60, 80). A possible answer to Green would be that the cases he takes into consideration are marginal, or that they may be explicated away as derived from, or parasitic upon the normal communicative intentions. (Grice himself gave this answer to certain objections, arguing that his intention was just to account for the normal cases). Yet, Green’s criticism is worth being considered, for it compels us to search for an alternative account that is able to explain these special cases as well. 2.4. Performative reflexivity has been accounted for, finally, in terms of the manifestation and recognition of communicative intentions, by means of descriptive conventions. This proposal, already mentioned, is the one to be found in Recanati 1987, 2007 and Searle 1989. Recanati writes: [T]he hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention is not only necessary but also sufficient for communication to take place. In other words, a speech act is performed by means of the hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention. Because I can bring about this recognition by saying what speech act I am performing, it is, in a sense, sufficient to have said this in order to guarantee that I have said something true. (Recanati 1987: 88) According to this view, then, in the case of explicit performatives, the hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention is not only necessary but also sufficient for a performative to have the speaker’s intended force. Moreover, only descriptive conventions would be required to achieve that. The Reflexivity of Explicit Performatives Theoria 66 (2009): 283-299 291 I think, however, that in order for certain speech acts to have their force it is required, in many cases, something more than the speaker’s intentions and the hearer’s recognition of them (even if these intentions include a reference to the utterance itself as a means of achievement of the declared act). Immediate counterexamples are declaratives (in Searle’s sense, e.g. judiciary sentences, legal formulae bringing about new legal statuses, and official nominations), where the existence of an institution is but one in a set of constitutive conditions for a speech act to possibly have a particular force. In these cases, communicative intentions are not sufficient, even once they have been recognised by the hearer. The same assessment is true, I think, in cases of communicative speech acts other than institutional declaratives. In many cases, other conditions must be fulfilled for the speech act to have a particular force, and these conditions go beyond individual intentions. (For example, a precondition for an utterance to count as a promise is that the hearer would prefer the speaker’s doing whatever she promises to do; a precondition for an utterance to count as an order is that the speaker must be in a position of authority over the hearer). In the most general case, some kind of preexistent social license or intersubjective acknowledgment is required for an explicit performative to possibly count as an act of a certain type. 12, 13 The problem with Recanati’s strict intentionalism is better evidenced if we turn our attention to Searle 1989. In his own reconstruction of the process that goes from a ‘declaration’ (now, in his sense) to an effective order, he says: Orders are a class of actions where the manifestation of the intention to perform the action is sufficient for its performance, given that certain other conditions are satisfied.... We assume those other conditions are satisfied. (Searle 1989: 553; m.i., CC) The fact that the fulfilment of “certain other conditions” must be taken as given, in order for the theoretical account to explain orders (or other classes of action) solely in terms of intentions and their recognition, allows us to question the sufficiency of the 12 This requirement of a social license is even recognised by the defenders of a strict intentionalist view. Bach and Harnish distinguish two main types of speech act: those they call conventional (Austin’s performatives), and those they term communicative. In the case of conventional illocutionary acts, the utterance counts as an act of a certain sort by virtue of meeting certain socially or institutionally recognized conditions for being an act of that sort. - Recanati holds a more subtle position, in that he distinguishes what he calls illocutionary acts in the strong sense from illocutionary acts in the weak sense. In contradistinction to the latter, the former have felicity conditions in Austin’s sense and “a social, quasi-institutional dimension” (Recanati 1987: 215). Interestingly enough, Recanati seems to hold that every speech act can be studied as belonging to any of those categories, apparently depending on the theoretical perspective (“if we abstract from the social license” or not) and the role assigned to the context of the utterance 13 My anonymous referee suggests that this need of certain other conditions might be explained away by recourse to Searle’s concept of background assumptions, in a parallel way to the one in which the existence of such conditions allow one to pick out the content of an assertive sentence (cf. Searle 1980). In my view, this is not enough to yield the force of a speech act. As the proponents of an interactional view of speech acts have contended, the successful performance of an illocutionary act depends on intersubjective agreement as manifested in the hearer’s response. This phenomenon of socalled ‘selection by reception’ is seen as a negotial feature of conversation, to the effect that it is the hearer’s response that selects one illocutionary effect (among the suitable ones that the speech act could have) by implicitly recognising its achievement. (Cf. Schegloff 1992, Sbisa 2006: 169-170) Cristina C ORREDOR Theoria 66 (2009): 283-299 298 in the showing accounts, there was something lacking. It was not completely clear how a description or an act of showing can give place to a performed action. If we assume a rule of language that accomplishes this, the mystery disappears. There is a linguistic practice in conformity with a rule of usage that authorises to institute a new institutional fact in the social world of the interlocutors, or a new interpersonal relationship as based on a commitment or responsibility (or on bestowing it). This explains also that in saying something our words may become our bonds. Notwithstanding this, it remains to be explained why the performative use should be the most salient for an interpreter in minimal context. This point is in need of further refinements. Yet it should be noticed that, from an Austinian point of view (primarily viewing speech acts as actions), the interpreter recognising the speaker’s intentions as conveyed by means of the performative prefix is not by itself sufficient for her speech act to have a particular force. These intentions must be seen as reliant on conventions (among which the performative-reflexive rule is intended to play a role) that must be previously in force. 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