what's the etymology of 'illocutionary'? Since 'allocute' is basically 'to speak', does the 'il-' prefix form the negative connotation?

nope. it's the assimilated form in L. of the prefix 'in-', meaning in/on/into/upon; so an illocution is (in philosophical terms) an act such as ordering, warning, undertaking, performed in saying something.

"To perform a locutionary act is in general... also and eo ipso to perform an illocutionary act, as I propose to call it." -J.L. Austin, How to do Things with Words

(not to be confused with 'perlocution', an act such as persuading or convincing, that may or may not be successfully achieved by an illocutionary act such as entreating or arguing.)

You might also look up a discussion held, at length, on the Board a few months ago relating to "begging the question". I'm sure that discussion wandered in and out of this one.

I'd have LIUed it for you, but the whole Board is so slow to load that I'm afraid that I'd die of old age before I could find it.

tsuwm: so, "Have you stopped beating your dog yet?" is NOT an illocution? Did I get that right?

and that's not even counting my squadron of toddlers.

BTW, what it the venereal term for toddlers in a group? of is such a term waiting to be invented? Perhaps "a squaldron of toddlers"?

(running off to check An Exaltation of Larks; will edit this to note anything found there.) EDIT: nothing found there; the closest was "a caper of kids". We have perhaps a tabula rasa, but certainly a open season for our creativity.

Well, that depends on the the nature of the group of todlers, whence they come from or what they are doing.

eg: unplanned pregnancies resulting is a couple sets of twins...un accident of todlers

A group of todlers in art class ... definitely a 'mess of todlers'

I'm sure our learned compatriots will come up with more.

A group of excited toddlers playing outside : a screech of toddlers.

Toddlers all asleep : a quiessence of toddlers.

How'm I doin' ?

Old saying : Children are like sugar : you forget how sweet they are when they are underfoot.

A bleeping miracle

it has been pointed out that I somehow missed an illocution:"Have you stopped beating your dog yet?" is NOT an illocution? Did I get that right? [how could this have happened?] rhetorical question

the answer is, yes, the quoted question is not an illocution in the manner in which illocution is defined philosophically and in speech theory. I xrefer you to the following: http://www.xrefer.com/entry/571772

while in theory a loaded question may have illocutionary force (I ain't no speech theoretician), an illocution is *not a loaded question, from my reading of it.

Thanks, tsuwm. Now I have another question (yes, me--imagine that): here is a partial quote from Xrefer.the illocutionary act is that of uttering it as a request; the perlocutionary act is what is accomplished by uttering it (e.g. the addressee might ignore the request, or might in fact help).
Would it be at all accurate to describe an illocutionary act as "cause", and a perlocutionary one as "effect"?

<<Would it be at all accurate to describe an illocutionary act as "cause", and a perlocutionary one as "effect"?

Off the cuff, at least one notable difference might be that the perlocutionary is an interpretive condition established by the illocutionary act wherein *either an action or non-action would function as the cognate of the effect in a cause and effect relationship. The very fact that non-action is then specified as *a **determinate non-action would be a definitive part of that condition. The occurrence or non-occurrence of the requested action, then, would not be the effect, the space in which that occurrence might be interpreted--which space is opened as a requirement of the illocutionary--might, however, be considered as the effect of the illocutionary. We would be talking, then, of cause and effect in the realm of the interpretation of speech acts. But that's just a guess.