Several speech-act theories hinge on taxonomies which divide the total set of illocutions into mutually exclusive and homogeneous subsets. This book starts with a critical appraisal of these classifications and then suggests an alternative approach on the basis of arguments from cognitive linguistics: an analysis of illocutionary-force indicating devices, such as illocutionary verbs, which are singled out as the object of investigation because they directly name illocutions. A partial analysis of 120 illocutionary verbs is undertaken within the framework of Cognitive Grammar and based on...