Hello Scott. Rules regarding bets and raises are a major issue for the TDA. In the past there was a variety of regulations pertaining to bet/raise procedures, depending on which house/tournament a player went to. The TDA has tried since inception to standardize the process for tournaments. You can find the current TDA-recognized bet/raise procedures in rules 29 through 36 of the 2009 Rule Standards (version 2). A convenient pocket-sized PDF is at the following link:
http://appservicesonline.com/PokerTDABlog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Poker_TDARules_2009-Version2_Final_Handout_pdf.pdfThe TDA bet-raise rules most applicable to the situation you describe are rules 30, 31, 32, and 33. I would summarize how they apply in your situation as follows:
1) A raise can be either by a) declaring raise. Then putting the amount out in one motion. OR b) declaring a specific amount first, then putting that amount out in however many motions you need to get the correct amount OR c) by silently pushing out chips in one motion (with no prior declaration or gesture of any sort).
2) Now, what is "declare a raise"? It absolutely is a verbal statement "raise". BUt a TD/dealer might also bind a player to a raise with a statement like 'bump it up" or a hand-gesture like thumbs-up. This gets into Rule 30 which states "it's players responsibility to make his intentions clear". If a player does something OTHER than clearly state "raise", then it's his fault not the TDs if the TD interprets that as an intent to raise when he didn't want to.
3) If we have declaration (intent) to raise then if he puts out
anything less than a min-raise it has to be increased to a min raise.
4) Now, lets say we don't have a declare of any sort (Situation 1-c above) , we only have chips pushed out. A) If he's facing a check then by pushing out any amount of chips he's intending to bet, so that's at least a min bet if he puts out anything. B) If he's facing a bet, then if he puts out anything less than the bet he has to bring it up to a call. C) If he puts out more than the bet then it's a call OR a raise depending on Rule 32 (for single chip) or Rule 33 (for multiple chips). Hope this helps, thanks alot for the question!