Planning Perlocutionary Acts

We suggest a model of perlocutionary acts in order to explain how an actor plans speech acts to ob tain a response from a partner. We introduce two knowledge structures, namely games and contracts, which are used together with themes by the mental processes underlying perlocutionary acts. We present our model through the discussion of a paradigmatic example; in particular we focus on the problem of shifting from the wants of the actor to the wants of the partner. Our analysis is developed at different levels of detail through the identification of CAUSE-TO-WANT, CONVINCE and REQUEST actions. Eventually, we discuss some theoretical implications of our approach to perlocution.