In “How to Do Things with Words,” philosopher J.L. Austin makes a useful distinction between two kinds of speech acts, the referential and the constative. The referential delineates an actual state of affairs; the constative establishes not a quality but a social function. Austin offers an analogy from baseball: the ball may travel knee-high across the center of the plate, a perfect strike, but if the umpire calls “ball,” that’s how it registers on the scoreboard and operates in the game.
