In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in the responsibilities arisingfrom the performance of illocutionary acts. Much of the contemporary literature on communicative commitments focuses on commitments that are acquired directly– for instance, by explicitly asserting that something is the case (e.g. MacFarlane 2003; Tanesini 2019). However, commitments can also be acquired indirectly– for instance, by implying (or presupposing) that something is the case (Mazzarella et al. 2018). The distinction between directly and indirectly acquired commitments is often thought to be linguistically significant. For instance, it has been suggested that indirectly acquired commitments cannot be truly assertoric (Stainton 2016, 201), and do not qualify as lying if insincere (Viebahn 2021). 

This talk will explore the distinction between directly and indirectly acquired commitments in better in detail. I will consider whether the distinction is reducible to other familiar oppositions: the opposition between what is said and what is implicated, between deniable and undeniable communicative intentions, and between additive and non-additive implicatures. After finding each of these views wanting, I will propose an alternative model, which acknowledges that different parameters contribute to determining the strength and quality of the commitments undertaken by communicators.