Are perceptual utterances constatives? Why or why not?

Answer 1

In the particular moment and the opinion of the speaker who speaks it, yes. Is it true or false? what is the description for the utterance? Perhaps it is only possible.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/constative

Adjective
constative

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

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perceptual

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perception

Noun
Singular
perception
Plural
perceptions


perception (plural perceptions)

Conscious understanding of something.
Vision (ability)
Acuity
(cognition) That which is detected by the five senses; not necessarily understood (imagine looking through fog, trying to understand if you see a small dog or a cat); also that which is detected within consciousness as a thought, intuition, deduction, etc.

Answer 2

I don't think it's quite so clear cut.

But let's start by defining terms so we're clear on what we're saying here. A 'constative' utterance would be something which is always either true or false. The sub-category of perceptual ones would seem to include only information you are getting from your senses.

The problem you are going to run into is subtext, of course. Many speech acts contain a lot of content that is implied but not overtly stated, and this implied content is more often than not recieved by listeners. J. L. Austin spent a lot of time trying to divide speech acts into categories, but eventually conceded that there isn't really a way to tell a constative statement from one that has other aims.

For example, I could say, "I can't see a thing in here." Which could be factually true, but contain the implied content that I want someone to turn on the lights to remedy the situation. The term for a statement that's trying to change someone else's beliefs or behaviour is a 'perlocution', and there isn't really ANY statement that COULDN'T be a perlocution with the right context. And trying to influence someone isn't factually true or false any more than moving a physical object is factually true or false - it's an action instead of a statement.

Thus a perceptual utterance COULD BE a constative, but isn't necessarily one. Hope that helps!