ANSWER KEY Semantics: a coursebook

Unit 23 Study Guide and Exercises

Directions: After you have read Unit 23 you should be able to tackle the following questions to
test your understanding of the main ideas raised in the unit.

1. You should understand these terms and concepts from this unit:

felicity conditions
sincerity conditions

2. List the felicity conditions for the following speech acts:

Suggested felicity conditions are given. Others might be possible.

a. promising
The speaker must intend to carry out the thing promised.
The thing promised must be something that the hearer wants to
happen.
The speaker is able to perform the action.
The action has not yet been done.
It is not obvious that the speaker will do the intended action under
normal circumstances.

b. admitting
The speaker did something.
The speaker takes responsibilty for what he did.
The hearer is not aware that the speaker did the thing.

c. declining
The hearer offers something to the speaker.
The speaker does not accept the thing that is offered.

d. offering
The speaker has something to give to the hearer, or is able to do
something for the hearer.
The speaker lets the hearer know that the hearer can have this entity
or benefit from this action.
The hearer does not have this entity, or has not yet received the
benefit of the action from the speaker.
3. Name the illocutionary acts involved in each of the following situations and label them as
being either felicitous or infelicitous (assuming normal everyday criteria). Make sure you
indicate why the act in question is either felicitous or infelicitous (i.e. say how it either agrees
with or contradicts the felicity conditions for the act). Also state the sentence type involved.

a. Waiter to customer: "I don't like this food!"

Illocutionary act: complaint. Sentence type: declarative.
Infelicitous, because it is more likely that the customer, not the waiter,
would complain about the food.

b. Contest official to winner: "I'm sorry I gave you the prize money."
Illocutionary act: apology. Sentence type: declarative.

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© James R. Hurford, Brendan Heasley and Michael B. Smith 2007
ANSWER KEY Semantics: a coursebook

Infelicitous, because it is inappropriate for the official giving the

money to apologize for giving it.

c. Customer to waiter: "I've had enough, thanks."

Illocutionary act: declining. Sentence type: Declarative.
Felicitous, because customers are expected to decline additional food
when they are finished.

d. Victor to the loser: "I give up!"

Illocutionary act: surrendering. Sentence type: declarative.
Infelicitous, because the loser, not the victor, is supposed to
surrender.

e. Prospective picnicker to his friends: "I promise to bring only stale food to the picnic."
Illocutionary act: promising. Sentence type: declarative.
Infelicitous, because it is inappropriate to promise to do something the
hearer doesn't want done.

f. One zoo worker to another: "Can I carry that elephant for you?"
Illocutionary act: offering. Sentence type: Interrogative.
Infelicitous, because people typically don't offer to do something they
are unable to do.

g. A non-chessplayer to another: "I bet I can beat you at chess."

Illocutionary act: betting/challenging. Sentence type: declarative.
Infelicitous, because non-experts don't typically claim to be able to
prevail in an activity over an expert in that activity.

h. Father to child: "You can stay up another hour."

Illocutionary act: permitting. Sentence type: declarative.
Felicitous, because the father has the authority to allow the child to
stay up later.

4. What are some similarities and differences between truth conditions and felicity conditions?
What does it mean to say that felicity conditions are of wider application than truth conditions?

Both truth conditions and felicity conditions have to be satisfied in order for the
utterance to be appropriate in some way. For truth conditions this
appropriateness takes the form of the utterance being true in a particular
context. For felicity conditions the appropriateness takes the form of the
utterance being acceptable, or felicitous, in the given context. Truth conditions
are typically only applied to declarative statements, whereas felicity conditions
can be applied to a wider range of sentence types, including interrogatives and
imperatives.

5. Why are sincerity conditions classified as a subtype of felicity conditions (and not the other
way around)? What is the difference between the two types of conditions?

Because sincerity conditions can be violated and the illocutionary act can still go
through, even though it will not be performed "sincerely". But if a felicity
condition is violated, the act will not go through: it will misfire.

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© James R. Hurford, Brendan Heasley and Michael B. Smith 2007
ANSWER KEY Semantics: a coursebook

6. Identify whether each of the following conditions given for a particular speech act is a felicity
condition or a sincerity condition, and be able to explain why. If it is difficult to choose, try to
explain why.

Our suggestions are given below, even though the choices might be argued to go
the other way.

a. apologizing: the thing apologized for must have been unavoidable

Sincerity condition; we can apologize for something even if it was
avoidable and the apology would seem to still go through.
b. apologizing: the speaker must be responsible for the thing apologized for
Felicity condition; if the speaker is not responsible for the thing
apologized for, it is hard to see how the apology is possible.
c. accusing: the speaker must think that the person accused actually did the deed
Sincerity condition; the speaker can make a false accusation.
d. accusing: the speaker is aware that something bad, illegal, etc. has occurred
Felicity condition; typically speakers don't accuse people of doing
things that the speaker is not aware of.
e. offering: the hearer must not already have the thing that is offered
Felicity condition; if the hearer already has what is being offered, it is
odd to offer it to him again.
f. offering: the speaker wants to give the thing offered to the hearer
Sincerity condition; the speaker can offer the hearer something
insincerely and the offer will still go through.
g. congratulating: the hearer has either accomplished something good, or
something good has happened to her
Felicity condition; it is odd to congratulate someone for something
that either the hearer didn't do or that didn't happen to her.
h. congratulating: the speaker thinks the event accomplished by the hearer is very
good or noteworthy
Sincerity condition; it is possible to congratulate someone insincerely
even if the speaker thinks the event accomplished is not good.
i. thanking: the hearer(s) must have done something on behalf of the speaker
Felicity condition; it is odd to thank a person for doing something if
that person has not done anything on behalf of the speaker.
j. thanking: the speaker approves of what the hearer(s) did for her
Sincerity condition; it is possible for the speaker to offer thanks even
if he is not happy about what was done to or for him.

7. Give a few sincerity conditions for the speech acts you provided felicity conditions for in
question 2 above. One sincerity condition is given per speech act; others are possible.
promising: the speaker thinks the act is worth carrying out
admitting: the speaker is sorry he carried out the act
declining: the speaker does not want the thing offered
offering: the speaker wants to give the thing offered

8. What sincerity condition(s) are likely present in the following utterances? Identify the type of
illocutionary act, as well.

a. "I'm sorry to barge in like this."

Illocutionary act: apology.
Sincerity condition(s): the speaker thinks the action is wrong; the
speaker thinks the action is unavoidable.

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© James R. Hurford, Brendan Heasley and Michael B. Smith 2007
ANSWER KEY Semantics: a coursebook

b. "Pass the grapes, please."

Illocutionary act: asking
Sincerity condition(s): the speaker wants the hearer to do the act.

c. "There are too many ants at this picnic!"

Illocutionary act: complaint.
Sincerity condition(s): the speaker doesn't like ants or has negative
feelings about ants.

9. Does the lack of sincerity necessarily prevent the speech acts in question 8 from being carried
out? Suppose, for example, that (b) were uttered to someone even if the speaker doesn't want the
grapes, or that (c) were uttered by someone who loves ants.

No. If an illocutionary act is performed insincerely it will still typically go

through. In 8b, for example, even if the speaker doesn't want the hearer to
perform the act, the act of asking still goes through, but it is performed
insincerely.

10. At the end of this unit we discussed how sentence meaning and utterance meaning are linked,
despite their differences. What is this link?

The link between sentence meaning and utterance meaning lies in the fact that
languages have the capacity to describe essentially anything, including acts
which make use of language itself (speech acts). We have seen that most
illocutionary acts have linguistic predicates to describe them.

www.cambridge.org/hurford
© James R. Hurford, Brendan Heasley and Michael B. Smith 2007