Performative hypothesis

Definition
The performative hypothesis is the hypothesis (proposed in Ross 1970), that every sentence is associated with an explicit illocutionary act, i.e. is derived from a deep structure containing a performative verb.

Example
Sentence (ia) is derived from (ib), or perhaps (ic):

(i) a I'll write you next week b I claim I'll write you next week c I promise I'll write you next week

Links

 * Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics