Illocution test

How can we tell if an act someone might perform in a conversation is an illocution? Is "making a promise" an illocution? What about "telling a joke"?

The illocution test

Asserting a fact, asking a question, and making a promise are all different illocutions: you can't assert a fact that is also a question, or ask a question that is also a promise.

On the other hand, "joking" is not an illocution. It fails the illocution test, by being compatible with every other illocution. You can assert a fact jokingly, or ask a question jokingly, or make a promise jokingly, or issue a command jokingly.

"Flirting" is not an illocution: there are flirty assertions, questions, promises, commands, and so on.

So is daha wrong?

As long as we are aware that daha (and moho…) mark illocution plus some sort of meta "joking" flag that is not illocution, I think there is no big problem.

It goes against the isolating nature of Toaq a little. I can't make a jokey promise until I go define nhaha. (And oh no, kaha is already taken!)

Also, it is very important that da doesn't mark the absence of a joke. Daha should not and cannot be mandatory. The next section rambles about why that is.

Illocution vs. intent

The key distinction here is that there are various illocutions in language (assertion, question, promise…), and we can make them with far more complicated intents (reassuring, joking / getting a reaction, fishing for compliments…).

We hide our intents all the time. Whereas another possible (weaker) illocution test is this: illocutions are not the sort of thing it even makes sense to want to hide.

If Toaq is chess, illocutions are your moves (moving, capturing, castling). There can be a hidden plan/intent behind the move, or it can be a "joke" move, etc. But the move type itself is necessarily visible to the opponent.

We had better be able to lie or tell jokes or flirt or bluff with regular da, and not be forced by Toaq to mark every joke with daha. Otherwise, it would make for a very weird game of chess, where we are forced to reveal our intent. It's just not the sort of thing any human language concerns itself with or can even enforce.