After some observations about the grammatical behavior of speech act verbs (i.e. verbs used to describe speech acts) and some reflections on the relevance of studying them, a formula is presented in terms of which all speech act verbs can be described. V. expresses the belief that every speech act type is associated with a perlocutionary effect that is typically intended by the person performing an act of that type. The text closes with a chapter on how to account for the non-typical cases.