Abstract
The paper follows on from Austin's definition of performatives.I attempt to describe and examine performative verbs or utterances,based on linguistic criteria.I introduce several new terms.I regard performatives as a certain kind of action during whose utterance we are also doing something.I characterize social validity (performative is associated with social consequences) and conventional consequential meaning (fixed formula,which are under normal circumstances reached for a particular effect on the addressee,have this meaning).For the primary semantic definition of performatives I established the following sentence:By saying this,I make or do somehow or something.Based on this format,I analyzed utterances which Austin considered as being performative.The format proves to be satisfactory but sometimes with a certain degree of abstraction.For performative verbs I use a verbal language analysis, based on which I found conformity with constative verbs describing doing something somehow.As an additional feature of performative utterances,I determined their dynamic nature (making a performative utterance is accompanied by a transformation which is shown as an effect on the addressee).I separate these utterances into explicit verbs,implicit verbs (the verb is formally omitted,the verb meaning remains) and nonverbal historically fixed.In a performative utterance the addressee is most often (if not exclusively) the person or persons to whom the utterance is intended, either explicitly -directly or indirectly- or implicitly.Further,I focus on a search for possible remote performatives and try to determine their characteristics.I focus on the dichotomy of the future versus performatives and come to the conclusion that the auxiliary verbs used today for expressing the future had their original,specific meaning.By applying the method of etymological analysis,I concluded that the first performatives were associated with specific motion tasks or rituals or with general speech.