Осуществляется семантический анализ аксриптивных выражений, таких как «Билл совершил преступление». Рассматривается специфика предикатов статуса и их от-личие от предикатов действия. Определяются контекстуальные условия для употребления ряда аскриптивных выражений. The article discusses the semantic specifications of sentences that contain status predicates. It is shown that the visually similar predicates “to steal the pen” and “to commit the crime” are in fact fun-damentally different. If in the first case we are talking about an action predicate, then in the second about a status predicate. Linguistic analysis identifies the necessary conditions for the correct use of expressions like “Bill committed the crime” in language. Since Bill’s actions are not a crime in them-selves, the phrase “committed the crime” is not predicted for Bill, but for the actions he committed. As an original example, the judicial precedent is considered, which we come across in M. S. Moore’s “Legal Reality: A Naturalist Approach to Legal Ontology”. The essence of the work is that Sheriff Kirby violated a federal law, in particular the law of 1790, according to which it is a criminal offense to obstruct the delivery of federal mail. Kirby arrested a postal worker, which undoubtedly slowed down the delivery of the mail. However, during the trial, Kirby himself indicated that he arrested the postal officer since the latter was suspected of murder. Moreover, Kirby acted according to the warrant he received from the state authorities. The court took into account the sheriff’s explanation and found him not guilty of obstructing the delivery of federal mail. According to Moore, although Kirby violated the federal law, he was innocent. The court also found that the sheriff’s actions were not a crime. The apparent contradiction between the actions of the sheriff and the court’s decision is resolved when we attempt to define the non-linguistic conditions for the use of the expression “committed the crime”. The presuppositional fund of the speech agent is singled out as such conditions.