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From Utterances to Speech Acts

By Mikhail Kissine

"Kissine offers a new theory of speech acts which is philosophically sophisticated and builds on work in cognitive science, formal semantics, and linguistic typology. This highly readable, brilliant essay is a major contribution to the field."

--François Recanati, Institut Jean-Nicod

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Summary Details


Query:   'DO' Survey
Author:  Jean Gilbert LEOUE
Submitter Email:  click here to access email
Linguistic LingField(s):   General Linguistics
Semantics

Summary:   Thanks to all those who kindly replied to my query (LINGUIST List 14.677), here is a summary for the 'Do Survey' started a couple of weeks ago. This was the query:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUERY: Please mark the answers to the questions below as follows:


(++) => Correct (What you would say in spontaneous speach)
(+) => Acceptable
(?) => Doubtful
(-) => Wrong


1. Do you agree with him?
( ) Yes I do it
( ) Yes I do so
( ) Yes I do that
( ) Yes I do


2. Do you feel cold?
( ) Yes I do so
( ) Yes I do
( ) Yes I do it
( ) Yes I do that


Do you feel along the ledge to find the matches in the dark?
( ) Yes I do it
( ) Yes I do that
( ) Yes I do
( ) Yes I do so
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I've eventually examined more than a hundred 'grammaticality judgements' that were kindly sent to me and 90 were readily analysable in statistical terms.The figures below only relates to positive or near-positive judgements. This result refers to what may be called 'the world's English' since the judgements which were analysed came from native speakers from the following countries: AUSTRALIA, CANADA, INDIA, NEW ZEALAND, UK, and USA.

****GENERAL sTATISTICAL ANALYSIS****

1. Do you agree with him?
(100%) Yes I do
(59.74%) Yes I do so
(23.42%) Yes I do that
(1.63%) Yes I do it


2. Do you feel cold?
100%) Yes I do
(32.1%) Yes I do so
(4.53%) Yes I do that
(0%) Yes I do it


3. Do you feel along the ledge to find the matches in the dark?
(100%) Yes I do
(72.34%) Yes I do so
(96.50%) Yes I do that
(61.90%) Yes I do it


****PROPORTIONAL STATISTICAL ANALYSIS****

1. Do you agree with him?
(100%) Yes I do
(51.41%) Yes I do so
(40.01) Yes I do that
(2.06%) Yes I do it


2. Do you feel cold?
(100%) Yes I do
(13.16%) Yes I do so
(3.12%) Yes I do that
(0%) Yes I do it


3. Do you feel along the ledge to find the matches in the dark?
(100%) Yes I do
(70.40%) Yes I do so
(95.73%) Yes I do that
(65.24%) Yes I do it

Et voil?!
As many people said they would accept the use of DO in some of these sentences provided they are interpreted in terms of habituality, I'm now wondering whether habituality in this case relates only to the use of present tense or the use of DO, or both? I'm still to work it out.
For those who may need further details about these figures (regional statistics, etc..), I can provide them.

LL Issue: 14.959
Date Posted: 30-Mar-2003
Original Query: Read original query


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