Abstract
In this paper, I present a new (i.e., previouslyoverlooked) breed of exercitivespeech act (the conversational exercitive). Iestablish that any conversationalcontribution that invokes a rule of accommodationchanges the bounds ofconversational permissibility and is thereforean (indirect) exercitive speechact. Such utterances enact permissibility factswithout expressing the contentof such facts, without the speaker intending tobe enacting such facts andwithout the hearer recognizing that it is so.Because of the peculiar nature ofthe rules of accommodation that generate them,conversational exercitives haveimportantly different felicity conditions andtherefore constitute a new breed ofexercitive speech act.
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Mcgowan, M.K. Conversational Exercitives: Something Else We do with Our Words. Linguistics and Philosophy 27, 93–111 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:LING.0000010803.47264.f0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:LING.0000010803.47264.f0