"What is it for a sentence to have a certain meaning? This is the question that William P. Alston addresses in this contribution to the philosophy of language. His answer focuses on the given sentence's potential to play the role that its speaker had in mind - what he terms the usability of the sentence to perform the illocutionary act intended by its speaker.". "Alston defines an illocutionary act as an act of saying something with a certain content. He develops his account of what it is to perform such acts in terms of taking responsibility, in uttering a sentence, for the existence of certain conditions." "In providing detailed and explicit patterns of analysis for the whole range of illocutionary acts, Alston makes a unique contribution to the field of philosophy of language - one that is likely to generate debate for years to come."--BOOK JACKET.