The assertion, on the other hand, is construed, in a reflective manner, as an act intended to describe the ritual from outside, which is successfully performed if uptake is secured. The performative is construed, in a projective manner in Recanati's (2000) sense, as one of the symbolic acts constituting the ritual, from which it obtains its illocutionary force. In the performative (in the narrow sense), the utterer names a ship, whereas in the constative, she makes an assertion. In the two uses, the utterer performs different illocutionary acts, while performing the same locutionary act. The sentence may also have a constative use, in which it is either true or false, as has been traditionally assumed for declarative sentences in general. Austin (1962) claims that the sentence 'I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth' may have a performative use, in which it does not describe or report anything at all, hence is neither true nor false, and to utter it is just to perform the illocutionary act of naming. This paper will show that differences between constative (or descriptive) and performative uses of a sentence arise from differences in construal regarding the relation in which the utterance stands to the world.
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