utterancesstatements

The term utterancesstatements refers to the subset of spoken or written utterances whose primary function is to convey information about the world by presenting a proposition as true or false. In linguistic and philosophical discussions this aligns with declarative utterances or statements. These utterances are distinguished from questions, commands, and exclamations by their intention to report or assert rather than solicit information, issue an instruction, or express emotion.

Form and content: utterancesstatements typically use a declarative mood, with a subject-predicate structure that supports truth-conditional evaluation. Their meaning is often analyzed in terms of truth conditions: the proposition claimed by the speaker is true in the relevant world, possibly relative to a context of evaluation. They may be direct, such as "The meeting starts at nine," or reported/indirect, such as "He said that the meeting starts at nine."

Pragmatics and interpretation: the force of an utterancestatement can be affected by context, irony, hedges, and presuppositions. Not all statements are true; speakers may issue false statements or commit errors. Irony or deception can complicate truth-conditional analysis. Indirect statements can be used to soften commitment or politeness constraints.

Applications and significance: in natural language processing, distinguishing utterance statements from other illocutionary acts supports tasks such as information extraction, dialogue management, and sentiment analysis. In philosophy, they are central to discussions of belief, assertion, and truth-conditional semantics. Related concepts include speech act theory, declarative sentences, and illocutionary force.