assertives

Assertives are a category of speech acts in linguistics and philosophy of language. They are statements or utterances that commit the speaker to the truth of a proposition and present the world as being a certain way. In many theories they are grouped with representatives, a broader class whose primary function is to describe, report, or state how things are, rather than to order, request, or express emotion.

The defining feature of an assertive is its connection to truth conditions. The success of an assertive is typically evaluated by whether the described state of affairs holds in the world. Thus assertives have truth-conditions and can be true or false. They often express beliefs or claims about the factual state of affairs, and speakers may hedge their assertives with terms like "I think" or "it seems," which can affect the strength or credibility of the claim without changing its basic force.

Common examples include declarative sentences such as "The cat is on the mat," "Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at sea level," and "The committee approved the proposal." These utterances are primarily aimed at presenting information as accurate and to be taken as true, rather than commanding action or expressing emotions.

Assertives contrast with other speech-act types such as directives (aimed at causing actions), expressives (expressing psychological states), commissives (commitments to future actions), and declarations (changing the status or reality of a situation). In contemporary semantics, the term is often used interchangeably with representatives or statements, depending on the analytic framework.