We use truth-value criterion for obtaining the meaning of descriptive or indicative statements. But in certain cases, descriptive statements cannot be judged as either true or false. For example, "John's children are bald but he has no children". If we consider this statement, then we do not find any reference of it. The reference of a statement expresses about the actual state of affairs of the world and thereby it is necessary to determine the truth or falsity of a sentence. In this case, can we treat this is a meaningless statement? We can't say so. Another example, "I ordered you to do something". Here, we do not find any reference of the statement, yet it is a descriptive statement. Take another example, "The colour of a flower is red and not red". In this case, first, we are asserting and then denying the fact. As a result, it leads to self-contradiction. It cannot be judged as either true or false because it violates the convention rules of descriptive statement.

Again, we cannot completely abandon the distinction between the two varieties of statement because the 'resemblance', which is a common factor of those, does not provide a clear and distinct idea about this matter on the one hand, and on the other hand, no clear-cut boundary is made to divide these two varieties of statements. However, there are some sorts of resemblance can't be overlooked between the two varieties of statement. In this context, Austin said that we should find some universal criterion to distinguish performative statements from constative statements. This criterion must be related to language. Further he enunciated that statements are governed by the grammars of a language. Grammatical structure of performative statement is different from grammatical structure of constative statements.

Performative statements share some grammatical features. These are:

1. All statements are in indicative mood.
2. All statements are in active voice, when the subject is first person singular.
3. All statements are in passive voice when the subject is second person or third person singular or plural.
4. The words involved in the formulation of sentences always are in present tense.

A question arises: can we say that these four features are inclusive for performative sentences? If it is not so, then we cannot say, it is a universal criterion for demarcating the line between these two varieties of statement. These grammatical features are equally share with constative statements. So it is not the case that these four features are found only in the case of performative statements.