Additional Performative Verbs from Presidential Records
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Examples of Performative Sentences in Presidential Records William Underwood Working Paper ITTL/CSITD 09-01 September 2009 Computer Science and Information Technology Division Information Technology and Telecommunications Laboratory Georgia Tech Research Institute Georgia Institute of Technology The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) sponsor this research under Army Research Office Cooperative Agreement W911NF-06-2-0050. The findings in this paper should not be construed as an official ARL or NARA position unless so indicated by other authorized documentation. Abstract Underwood [2008] argues that an archivist‟s ability to understand the acts carried out by records is fundamental to his capabilities to describe and review records for possible restrictions on disclosure. To support archivists in performing these tasks, he proposes an approach for automatically recognizing the speech acts performed by the sentences in electronic records. This method is dependent, in part, on the capability to recognize performative verbs and interpret performative sentences. Verbs like recommend, request, and promise whose action is accomplished merely by saying them or writing them are termed performative verbs. A performative verb has a performative use in a performative sentence if the form of the verb is first person (singular or plural), present tense, indicative, and active (or passive) voice. There are also performative sentences in which the verb is in the present continuous, in nominalized form, or in passive voice. In this report, 201 performative verbs are defined and examples are provided that were found in the Public Papers of the Presidents. These examples are being analyzed to determine syntactic and semantic features that will enable the implementation of that part of the speech act recognition method for recognizing and interpreting performative sentences. ii Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 BACKGROUND ..................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 PURPOSE ............................................................................................................................................. 1 1.3 SCOPE ................................................................................................................................................. 2 2. PERFORMATIVE VERBS OCCURRING IN PRESIDENTIAL PUBLIC PAPERS ...................... 2 3. ADDITIONAL PERFORMATIVE VERBS NOT DEFINED BY VANDERVEKEN ...................... 65 4. ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF PREVIOUSLY CONSIDERED PERFORMATIVE VERBS ...... 79 4.1 ASSERTIVES ...................................................................................................................................... 80 4.2 COMMISSIVES .................................................................................................................................... 84 4.3 DIRECTIVES ....................................................................................................................................... 85 4.4 DECLARATIVES .................................................................................................................................. 88 4.5 EXPRESSIVES .................................................................................................................................... 91 5. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 93 REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................... 94 iii 1. Introduction 1.1 Background According to Searle and Vanderveken, every sentence of spoken or written discourse carries out a speech act whose purpose is to make an assertion commit to something, direct an action, declare a state of affairs or express an attitude or emotion [Searle and Vanderveken 1985, p. 7]. Speech acts include common acts such as stating, promising, requesting, ordering, and congratulating. They also include acts that can only be performed by persons with the power, or knowledge or authority to do so such as proclaiming, declaring, directing, pardoning, appointing, nominating, and counseling. Archivists who process Federal and Presidential records must read these records and understand these speech acts in order to describe these records and review them for possible restrictions on disclosure to the public. Given the increasing volumes of Federal and Presidential electronic records acquired by NARA, it will be decades, if not centuries, before these records are described. This is especially true of Presidential e- records as they must reviewed page-by-page for restrictions on disclosure as provided by the Presidential Records Act (PRA). Underwood [2008] reported on an analysis of 120 Presidential records to identify explicit speech acts expressed with performative verbs, implicit speech acts that are not expressed with performative verbs and speech acts that are indicated by textual structure. Occurrences of 62 performative verbs used in performative sentences were found in this corpus. 41 of these verbs had been previously identified as performative verbs and defined by Vanderveken [1990] Occurrences of 21 performative verbs not previously identified by Vanderveken were identified and defined by the author. A method was proposed for identifying the speech act performed by every sentence, or group of sentences in a record. It was shown how this information could be used to describe individual records and could provide information needed for archival review. Vanderveken has defined 271 performative verbs, only 41 of which were found in the corpus of 120 Presidential records. In the larger collection of Presidential Records – George Bush 1989-1993, one would expect to find occurrences of the 231 other performative verbs defined by Vanderveken. Furthermore, the examples of the 61 performative verbs found in the corpus of 120 Presidential records exhibited only a few of the syntactic forms that can be used for performative sentences. 1.2 Purpose The purpose of this report is to present the results of a search of the Public Papers of the Presidents for additional examples of the occurrence of performative verbs in performative sentences. Also to define performative verbs that were found in the Public Papers that are not defined by Vanderveken. 1 1.3 Scope In section 2, examples are given of performative sentences using 111 performative verbs that have been defined by Vanderveken. In section 3, examples are given of performative sentences using 27 not defined by Vanderveken. In section 4, additional examples of performative sentences are given for 62 performative verbs for which only a few examples had been provided. In section 5, the results are summarized and the next steps indicated. 2. Performative Verbs Occurring in Presidential Public Papers An online copy of The Public Papers of the Presidents was searched for occurrences of the 230 performative verbs defined by Vanderveken that were not found in the original corpus of 120 Presidential records. Examples were found for 111 of these verbs. In the following list of performative verbs, the examples are organized by the illocutionary force (assertive, commissive, directive, declarative and expressive). Vanderveken‟s definitions of the performative verbs are quoted or paraphrased. Assertives reassert “To reassert is to assert for a second (or subsequent) time, often in response to hesitation or denial.” [Vanderveken 1990, p. 170] Q. Mr. President, you've repeatedly said that you have not encouraged the Kurds and the Shiites to rise up with the expectation that the U.S. would be in there fighting with them. And yet the Kurdish representatives this morning on one of the talk shows are saying that that's clearly the impression they got from listening to the Voice of Free Iraq, which they understood to be supported by the U.S. Would you clarify just what the role the U.S. played in running that radio station? President Bush. No, I don't have the details on it. But I will reassert, I never in any way implied that the United States was going to use force beyond the mandate of the United Nations.1 correct “To correct someone, maybe myself, is to presuppose that a mistake has been made in a previous assertion, and to assert a slightly different propositional content to replace it.” [Vanderveken 1990, p. 170] 1 Public Papers of the Presidents, George Bush, The President's News Conference With President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico in Houston, Texas 1991-04-07 2 The President. May I correct an omission? Yesterday, far beyond the call of duty, Mr. Watanabe, the Minister, met with our people and came down and couldn't have been more hospitable to Mrs. Bush and me. And I'm very sorry I did not mention that in the beginning of my remarks.2 claim(1), claim(2) Claim has two distinct assertive uses. To claim is to assert with a high degree of strength. To claim is also to assert one‟s right or title to. [Vanderveken 1990, p. 170] Claim also has a directive use. We also want to recognize benefactors who, through vision and steadfast commitment, keep art alive. American art thrives because of arts administrators like our own J. Carter Brown, who has molded