Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Travis' <jats:italic>Saying and Understanding</jats:italic> offers the foundations for what he hopes will be a generative theory of illocutions. I want to criticize the “generative” character of the theory.</jats:p><jats:p>Note first that I am not going to criticize the theory because — as is true of <jats:italic>Saying and Understanding</jats:italic> — there are no rules for its generation, nothing to let us see how it will work. The book is only a discussion of the foundations of such a theory. My criticism is that I do not see how it <jats:italic>can</jats:italic> be generative, given what Travis expects it to do. So in this critique I shall outline what I think he expects it to do, how he expects it to work, and why I think it cannot.</jats:p>