ABSTRACT
Module 22: Speech acts and clause types 176
22.1 The basic correspondences 177 22.2 Direct and indirect speech acts: what the utterance ‘counts as’ 178
Module 23: The declarative and interrogative clause types 180
23.1 Clause types and the mood element: Subject-Finite variation 181 23.2 The declarative clause type 181 23.3 Interrogative clauses, negation and the do-operator 182 23.4 Yes/no interrogatives and their responses 183 23.5 Alternative interrogatives 185 23.6 Wh-interrogatives 185 23.7 Double interrogatives: questions within questions 186 23.8 Question tags 187 23.9 Features of the main types of tag 187 23.10 Invariant question tags 189
Module 24: The exclamative and imperative clause types 190
24.1 The exclamative 191 24.2 The imperative 191
24.2.1 The verb in the imperative 193 24.2.2 Negative and emphatic imperatives 194 24.2.3 Let’s and Let us 194
24.3 Verbless and freestanding subordinate clauses 195 24.4 The subjunctive in English 196
Module 25: Indirect speech acts, clause types and discourse functions 197
25.1 Performatives and the declarative 197 25.2 Exclamations 199
26.1 Rhetorical questions 201 26.2 Questions as preliminaries 201 26.3 Some, any and negative forms in biased questions 202 26.4 Biased declaratives with attitudinal markers 203
Module 27: Directives: getting people to carry out actions 205
27.1 Directives and the imperative 205 27.2 The discourse functions of let’s imperatives 207 27.3 Politeness in directives 207 27.4 Modalised interrogatives as polite directives 208 27.5 Declaratives as directives 208 27.6 Indirectness, impoliteness and confrontation 209 27.7 Clause types and illocutionary force: summary table 210
27.7.1 Clause combinations 211
Further reading 212 Exercises 213
SUMMARY
1 Speech acts are the acts we perform through words. Certain general types of speech act are basic to everyday interaction; these are statements, questions, exclamations and directives, the latter covering orders, requests and instructions among others.
