 Promises have often been cast as speech acts, or actions that we perform by speaking. The locus classicus for this issue is J. L. Austin’s 1962 book How to Do Things with Words. In it Austin defines two sorts of speech acts, or “performatives”: illocutions and perlocutions. Illocutions are those actions that we perform by uttering the words alone. Austin lists requesting, warning and announcing as examples. Alternatively, perlocutions are actions performed by speaking which require some particular effect of the speech in order to be successful. Austin cites persuading, explaining and alarming as examples of the latter sort of locution.