Verdictives

Verdictives are a term used in philosophy of language and pragmatics to denote a subclass of illocutionary acts whose primary function is to deliver a verdict about a proposition, action, or state of affairs. When a speaker performs a verdictive act, they express a judgment that something is true, false, adequate, justified, or appropriate given the available evidence. The act often carries a normative or evaluative force, signaling how listeners should assess the issue at hand and sometimes implying a recommended course of action or acceptance of the judgment.

In usage, verdictives frequently appear in legal, formal, or evaluative contexts, such as court findings, committee conclusions, or expert assessments. They can be voiced as declarative conclusions, determinations, or findings, for example, “The court finds the defendant guilty” or “The review panel found the proposal insufficient.” In everyday speech, verdictives may occur in evaluations of performance, arguments, or decisions, though they tend to be more common in formal discourse where authority or evidence supports a stated verdict.

Verditives are typically analyzed in relation to other illocutionary acts, such as assertives (stating facts), expressives (expressing attitudes), directives (instructing), and commissives (promising). Some frameworks treat verdictives as a distinct evaluative subclass, while others subsume them under broader categories of evaluative or committed speech acts. The term’s precise scope varies across authors and disciplines.

See also: illocutionary act, evaluative language, legal rhetoric, verdict.