Are explicit performatives assertions?

Hereby explained: an event-based account of performative utterances

“…4, for a similar reconstruction of the argument). Jary (2007) counters this claim and proposes the following explanation of the yes/ no-issue: A felicitous performative utterance of an explicit performative sentence describes itself. Therefore, as Jary argues, a hearer witnessing such an utterance can hardly disagree with its claim that a promise, invitation, etc.…”

“…This second level of meaning is pragmatically more complex (Jary 2007) and secondary. Hearers can guess this secondary sense because the assertion reading is simpler but irrelevant in many situations.…”

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Abstract Several authors propose that performative speech acts are self-guaranteeing due to their self-referential nature (Searle 1989;Jary 2007). The present paper offers an analysis of self-referentiality in terms of truth conditional semantics, making use of Davidsonian events.

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“…Several authors propose that self-referentiality might be the key to understanding performativity (Jary 2007). Searle (1989) assumes that performative utterances are statements about themselves, and their logical structure is made explicit by the use of adverbial hereby.…”

“…(Bach and Harnish 1992, 100, fn. 14) Given that this position is still echoed in Jary (2007), a semantic account of performative sentences which is fully normal in all linguistic respects and still derives self-referentiality on basis of meaning should substantially enrich the debate.…”