constative

English

Etymology

Coined to translate the German konstatierend, using cōnstāt-, the perfect passive participial stem of the Latin verb cōnstō (“I agree, correspond, or fit; I am certain, decided, or consistent”), suffixed with the English -ive, suggesting a hypothetical Latin etymon of the form *cōnstātīvus.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒnstətɪv/, /kənˈsteɪtɪv/
• Rhymes: -ɒnstətɪv, -eɪtɪv

Adjective

constative (not comparable)

1. (linguistics) Pertaining to an utterance relaying information and likely to be regarded as true or false.

   Statements are constative utterances.

   • 1962, J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (OUP paperback edition, page 72)

     One thing, however, that it will be more dangerous to do, and that we are very prone to do, is to take it that we somehow know that the primary or primitive use of sentences must be, because it ought to be, statemental or constative, in the philosophers' preferred sense of simply uttering something whose sole pretension is to be true or false and which is not liable to criticism in any other dimension.

Derived terms

• constate
• constatively
• constativeness

 

Related terms

• performative

Noun

constative (plural constatives)

1. (linguistics) An utterance relaying information and likely to be regarded as true or false.
   • 2011, Phyllis Kaburise, Speech Act Theory and Communication: A Univen Study, page 77:

     The distinction between constatives and performatives is one of the distinctions that he starts questioning.