How to Do Things with Words
E286761
How to Do Things with Words is a foundational work in 20th-century philosophy of language by J. L. Austin that introduced speech act theory and transformed understandings of how language functions in practice.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| How to Do Things with Words canonical | 5 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2653413 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: How to Do Things with Words Context triple: [linguistic turn, relatedWork, How to Do Things with Words]
-
A.
Words and Rules
Words and Rules is a book by cognitive scientist Steven Pinker that explores how the human mind processes language, particularly the interplay between memorized words and grammatical rules.
-
B.
Word and Object
"Word and Object" is a seminal 1960 work of analytic philosophy by W.V.O. Quine that develops his views on meaning, reference, and the indeterminacy of translation.
-
C.
Syntactic Structures
Syntactic Structures is a landmark 1957 book by linguist Noam Chomsky that revolutionized the study of language by introducing generative grammar and challenging behaviorist views of linguistics.
-
D.
The Stuff of Thought
The Stuff of Thought is a book by cognitive scientist Steven Pinker that explores how language reveals the nature of human thought, emotion, and social relationships.
-
E.
Logic of Sense
Logic of Sense is a 1969 philosophical work by Gilles Deleuze that explores language, paradox, and the concept of sense through engagements with Stoicism, psychoanalysis, and literature.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: How to Do Things with Words Target entity description: How to Do Things with Words is a foundational work in 20th-century philosophy of language by J. L. Austin that introduced speech act theory and transformed understandings of how language functions in practice.
-
A.
Words and Rules
Words and Rules is a book by cognitive scientist Steven Pinker that explores how the human mind processes language, particularly the interplay between memorized words and grammatical rules.
-
B.
Word and Object
"Word and Object" is a seminal 1960 work of analytic philosophy by W.V.O. Quine that develops his views on meaning, reference, and the indeterminacy of translation.
-
C.
Syntactic Structures
Syntactic Structures is a landmark 1957 book by linguist Noam Chomsky that revolutionized the study of language by introducing generative grammar and challenging behaviorist views of linguistics.
-
D.
The Stuff of Thought
The Stuff of Thought is a book by cognitive scientist Steven Pinker that explores how language reveals the nature of human thought, emotion, and social relationships.
-
E.
Logic of Sense
Logic of Sense is a 1969 philosophical work by Gilles Deleuze that explores language, paradox, and the concept of sense through engagements with Stoicism, psychoanalysis, and literature.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (59)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
non-fiction book
ⓘ
philosophical book ⓘ work of philosophy of language ⓘ |
| academicDiscipline |
linguistics
ⓘ
philosophy ⓘ |
| author |
J. L. Austin
ⓘ
J. L. Austin ⓘ
surface form:
John Langshaw Austin
|
| basedOn | William James Lectures ⓘ |
| centralConcept |
constative utterance
ⓘ
felicity conditions ⓘ illocutionary act ⓘ locutionary act ⓘ performative utterance ⓘ perlocutionary act ⓘ speech act ⓘ speech act classification ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| editor |
J. O. Urmson
ⓘ
Marina Sbisa ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 0-19-824553-8 ⓘ |
| hasPart |
Lecture I
ⓘ
Lecture II ⓘ Lecture III ⓘ Lecture IV ⓘ Lecture IX ⓘ Lecture V ⓘ Lecture VI ⓘ Lecture VII ⓘ Lecture VIII ⓘ Lecture X ⓘ Lecture XI ⓘ Lecture XII ⓘ Lecture XIII ⓘ Lecture XIV ⓘ Lecture XIX ⓘ Lecture XV ⓘ Lecture XVI ⓘ Lecture XVII ⓘ Lecture XVIII ⓘ Lecture XX ⓘ |
| influenced |
John Searle
ⓘ
surface form:
John R. Searle
communication studies ⓘ discourse analysis ⓘ legal philosophy ⓘ pragmatics in philosophy ⓘ speech act theory in linguistics ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| lectureSeriesLocation | Harvard University ⓘ |
| lectureSeriesYear | 1955 ⓘ |
| notableFor |
challenging the constative–performative distinction
ⓘ
founding speech act theory ⓘ |
| posthumous | true ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1962 ⓘ |
| publisher | Oxford University Press ⓘ |
| subject |
analytic philosophy
ⓘ
linguistics ⓘ philosophy of language ⓘ pragmatics ⓘ speech act theory ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: How to Do Things with Words Description of subject: How to Do Things with Words is a foundational work in 20th-century philosophy of language by J. L. Austin that introduced speech act theory and transformed understandings of how language functions in practice.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
J. L. Austin
subject surface form:
J. L. Austin