Self-Assessment Questions and Possible Answers

1. What is illocutionary act?

Ans.: Illocutionary act are those acts where we find the act of saying, or asking, giving an order, promising something, and so on. More succinctly, it is an act of saying something. For example, in saying "I promise to do A", I perform the act of making a promise.



2. What is constative sentence?

Ans.: The constative sentence is also known as descriptive or indicative sentence. It expresses about the state of affairs of the phenomenal world. It can be judged as either true or false. For example, "snow is white". It is a constative sentence because it describes certain facts of the world, and to utter this sentence, we need not to perform any action(s).



3. Briefly explain the regulative rules.

Ans.: Regulative rules are primarily found in illocutionary acts. These are characterized as moral rules or can be paraphrased as imperatives. For example; "While cutting fruits we should hold the knife in our right hand".