Felicity Conditions

The concept of felicity conditions acts as the "rulebook" for speech acts. "Felicity" means success or appropriateness. For a speech act to actually work and have a real-world effect, specific background conditions must be perfectly satisfied. You cannot just utter words into the air and expect them to magically perform an action; the situation must be valid, the speaker must have the correct authority, and the intentions must be genuine.

Linguists divide these into several categories. First, there are preparatory conditions, meaning the background circumstances must be right (you cannot marry two people if they are already married to someone else). Second, there are executive conditions, meaning the person speaking must have the societal or legal authority to perform the act (a random civilian cannot declare a war, but a president can). Finally, there are sincerity conditions, meaning the speaker must actually intend to do what they say. If you make a promise without any intention of keeping it, the speech act is technically infelicitous or "unhappy."