The semantics of emotive markers and other illocutionary content

I coin the term ‘emotive markers’ to describe words like alas which encode not-at-issue information about the speaker’s emotive attitude towards the content of the utterances they occur in. I argue that there are important differences emotive markers and encoders of canonical not-at-issue content, like the utterance modifier frankly or the evidential adverb apparently. In contrast to the latter, emotive markers are only compatible with declarative mood; are uniquely restricted in terms of the content they apply to; and can result in Moore’s Paradox. I conclude that the contribution of emotive markers should thus be treated as ‘illocutionary content’, on par with the sincerity conditions encoded in illocutionary mood. I present a formal analysis of illocutionary content in which it differs from other not-at-issue content in restricting the speaker’s Discourse Commitments (Gunlogson, 2001) rather than the Common Ground.