THE ROLE OF CONTEXT IN SENTENCE CLASSIFICATION

Abstract

An aspect of performative grammer is advanced and justified in these pages. Performative grammer is a context –sensitive performance approach to the scientific characterisation of language structure, first elaborated in UWAJEH (1979) at the universe de Montreal, that takes into account the specific (kinds of) communication contexts in which particular language textures are bonafide communicative constructs of language users. Specifically, this paper argues that communication context, not language structure as generally believed since antiquity, is the crucial factor for basic classifications of sentences in particular and for sentence description in general. The implications for Grammar of such a conclusion are then discussed with special reference to AUSTIN’s (1962) doctrine of illuculionary force in speech acts Theory and the performative preface of the so-called performative hypothesis outlined by BERCKMANS (1988).