Blurb:

This study is about characterising the different types of speech acts as they are expressed in Irish. We apply speech act theory to a wide range of syntactic constructions underpinning Irish speech acts. Importantly, we formalise the situation of an utterance such that those parts of context and common ground important for the resolution of utterance meaning are reflected in the model of the various speech acts. While the theory of speech acts proposed by Searle (1969), Searle & Vanderveken (1985), and Vanderveken & Kubo (2001) motivate the analysis, the model of speech acts proposed here is extended to include context and common ground of the interlocutors, framed within a situation.

The theme of this book is the characterisation of speech acts of Irish, and that the situation, as a cognitive framing mechanism, is at the heart of utterance interpretation. Throughout the study, the situation is shown to provide a systematicity that contributes towards pragmatic utterance interpretation and understanding. Additionally, the situation is demonstrated to have a dynamic structure and to act as a template for understanding, functioning as a templatic schema, to differentiate between speech act utterances in real-time language use, while encapsulating relevant context and common ground.