Definition:
A verb--such as promise, invite, apologize, forbid, inform, request, and thank--that explicitly conveys the kind of speech act being performed.
Examples and Observations:
- "The faculty at Ohio's Bowling Green State University vetoed a professor's planned course on political correctness. Kathleen Dixon, director of women's studies at the university, explained: 'We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech.'"
(George Will, Newsweek, Dec. 25, 2000) - "By saying we apologize we perform an expressive act simultaneously with the naming of that expressive act. It is for this reason that apologize is called a performative verb, defined as a verb denoting linguistic action that can both describe a speech act and express it. This explains why we can say that we are sorry, but not that we are sorry on someone else's behalf because be sorry only expresses, but does not describe the act of making an apology."
(René Dirven and Marjolijn Verspoor, Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics, John Benjamins, 2004) - "Generally, the performative verb . . . is in the simple present active and the subject is I, but the verb may be in the simple present passive and the subject need not be I: Smoking is forbidden; The committee thanks you for your services. A test for whether a verb is being used performatively is the possible insertion of hereby: I hereby apologize; The committee hereby thanks you. In hedged performatives, the verb is present but the speech act is performed indirectly: In saying I must apologize for my behavior, the speaker is expressing an obligation to make an apology, but implies that the acknowledgement of that obligation is the same as an apology. In contrast, I apologized is a report, and Must I apologize? is a request for advice."
(Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford Univ. Press, 1992)
Also Known As: performative process
