La teoria dell’indeterminatezza semantica degli slur / Semantic indeterminacy theory of slurs

Giuliano Torrengo | Invited paper

Giuliano Torrengo | Invited paper

Keywords: Slurs, Expressives, Indeterminacy, Semantic deference, Discrimination

Abstract

A puzzling element of the derogatory aspect of slurs is its erratic behavior in embeddings, such as negation or belief reports. The derogatory aspect seems sometimes to scope out from the embedding to the context of utterance, while at other times it seems to interact with the linguistic constructions in which the slur is implanted. I argue that slurs force us to maintain a kind of semantic indeterminacy which, to my knowledge, has passed largely unnoticed in philosophy of language.

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