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SUMMARY:Derogatives: Meaning or Metadata? - Geoffrey Nunberg (UC Berkeley)
DTSTART:20121025T160000Z
DTEND:20121025T173000Z
UID:TALK40504@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Alison Biggs
DESCRIPTION:The literature on “derogatives”—a lot of it coming from 
 philosophy of language\, rather than linguistic semantics—usually depart
 s from two assumptions: that derogatives are a coherent linguistic class\,
  and that their derogative force follows from their linguistic meanings\, 
 either as an entailment or a conventional implicature. I’ll propose anot
 her approach here\, making three main points. First\, “derogatives” ar
 e part of a much more extensive class of appraisive expressions\; the prin
 ciples that account for the appraisive force of “boche” should also ac
 count for the appraisive force of “la-la land\,” “bureaucrat\,” an
 d “free enterprise.” Second\, rather than connecting this force direct
 ly to the meanings of the expressions\, we should treat it the way standar
 d dictionaries do\, as following from metadata about their associated comm
 unities of judgment\, in Alan Gibbard’s phrase. Third\, the full effect 
 of strong derogatives follows from two independent sources: an appraisive 
 judgment associated with the illocutionary act\, and a noncancellable “e
 xhibitive” force associated with the act of locution itself\, which is w
 hy one can’t even mention them.   
LOCATION:Erasmus Room\, Old Court\, Queens' College
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