Speech Act Theory Maps to Entity Primitives

Research into whether linguistic categories of utterances map to knowledge graph primitives. Finding: Searle’s 5 illocutionary act categories map almost perfectly to AgentOS’s illocutionary primitives, validating the architecture from a completely independent theoretical framework.

1. Sentence Types in Grammar (4 Types)

English grammar classifies sentences by their function:

Type	Function	Punctuation	Example
Declarative	Makes a statement / claims truth	Period	”The meeting is at 3pm.”
Interrogative	Asks a question / seeks information	Question mark	”When is the meeting?”
Imperative	Gives a command / requests action	Period or exclamation	”Schedule the meeting.”
Exclamatory	Expresses strong feeling	Exclamation mark	”What a great meeting!”

These are surface-level categories. Speech act theory goes deeper.

2. Speech Act Theory (Austin & Searle)

Austin’s Three Levels

J.L. Austin (1962, How to Do Things with Words) discovered that every utterance operates at three simultaneous levels:

Level	What it is	Example: “I’ll be there at 3pm”
Locutionary	The literal content (what you say)	The words and their meaning
Illocutionary	The act performed (what you’re doing)	Making a promise / commitment
Perlocutionary	The effect achieved (what happens)	The listener now expects you

The illocutionary level is the key one — it classifies what the utterance DOES in the world, not just what it says.

Searle’s 5 Categories of Illocutionary Acts

John Searle (1976) classified all possible illocutionary acts into 5 exhaustive categories based on their “direction of fit” between words and the world:

Category	Direction of Fit	What it does	Definition
Assertive	Word → World	Claims something is true	Speaker asserts a proposition about how the world IS. The words must match reality.
Directive	World → Word	Requests/demands action or information	Speaker tries to get the hearer to do something. Reality must change to match the words.
Commissive	World → Word	Commits to a future action	Speaker commits themselves to a course of action. Reality must change (the speaker will act).
Declarative	Both directions	Creates reality by utterance	The act of saying it MAKES it so. “I now pronounce you married.” “You’re fired.”
Expressive	Neither	Expresses psychological state	Speaker expresses feelings about a state of affairs. No truth conditions.

The direction of fit is the deep insight:

Assertives: words must match reality (descriptive)
Directives & Commissives: reality must match words (prescriptive)
Declarations: saying it makes it so (performative — both directions at once)
Expressives: neither — feelings just ARE

3. The Mapping to AgentOS Primitives

The mapping between Searle’s categories and AgentOS’s entity primitives is remarkably clean:

Searle Category	Direction of Fit	AgentOS Primitive	How it maps
Assertive	Word → World	story	Claims about reality: “This happened,” “This is true”
Directive (action)	World → Word	outcome (task)	Demands reality change: “Do this,” “Make this happen”
Directive (info-seeking)	World → Word	question	Demands information: “What is X?”, “When did Y?”
Commissive	World → Word	outcome	Commits to future state: “I will do X,” “We aim for Y”
Declarative	Both	right	Creates reality by utterance: “You’re fired,” “This license grants…”
Expressive	Neither	???	Feelings and reactions — possibly annotations, not first-class entities

Key Insight: Two Orthogonal Axes

The existing ontological primitives (work, actor, event, list) and the illocutionary primitives (story, outcome, question, right) form two orthogonal axes:

Axis	What it captures	Primitives	Nature
Ontological	The nouns — things that EXIST	work, actor, event, list	What IS in the world
Illocutionary	The verbs — what people DO	story, outcome, question, right	What people DO about the world

This gives a principled answer to “why these primitives and not others?” — because they span both axes of human knowledge: what exists and what we do about it.

The Expressive Gap

Searle’s 5th category (expressives) doesn’t clearly map to an entity primitive. Expressives include:

“Thank you” (gratitude)
“I’m sorry” (apology)
“Congratulations” (celebration)
Emoji reactions, likes, upvotes

These might be best modeled as annotations on other entities (reactions to posts, acknowledgments of events) rather than first-class primitives. A “like” is an expressive act ON a work, not an independent entity.

4. Validation from Linguistics

The fact that a knowledge graph architecture independently arrived at categories that map to a 70-year-old linguistic framework is strong validation:

Story = Assertive: Both are about claiming truth. A story asserts “this happened.” An assertive speech act claims “this is the case.”
Outcome/Task = Directive + Commissive: Both are about changing reality. A task directs “do this.” A goal commits “we will achieve this.” Both have the same direction of fit — reality must change to match the words.
Question = Directive (info-seeking): Searle classified questions as a subtype of directives — they direct the hearer to provide information. This validates question as its own primitive (a directive that seeks information rather than action).
Right = Declarative: Both create reality by utterance. A license declares “you may do X.” A marriage certificate declares “you are married.” The act of declaring IS the creation.
Work, Actor, Event, List: These have NO counterpart in speech act theory — correctly so. They describe what EXISTS (ontology), not what people DO (illocution). The two axes are genuinely orthogonal.

5. The Direction of Fit as a Design Principle

The “direction of fit” gives a clean test for classifying new entity types:

Direction	Test	If yes, it’s…
Word → World	”Does this claim something about reality?”	Story / assertive
World → Word	”Does this demand reality change?”	Outcome / directive+commissive
Both	”Does saying this make it so?”	Right / declarative
Neither	”Does this express a feeling?”	Annotation / expressive
N/A	”Does this just exist?”	Ontological primitive

Significance for Entity Architecture

This research led to the “5+5” (later 5+4, then evolved further) primitive architecture:

Ontological primitives (what EXISTS):

work — things people create
actor — things that can do things
event — things that happen at a time
list — organizational grouping
record — structured data entries

Illocutionary primitives (what people DO):

story — claims about reality (assertive)
outcome — desired states of the world (directive + commissive)
question — frames seeking resolution (directive, info-seeking)
right — reality created by declaration (declarative)

The expressives gap was resolved by treating reactions/expressions as relationship data (annotations) rather than entities.