Slurs: At-issueness and Semantic Normativity

• Main Author: Simone Carrus
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Firenze University Press 2017-08-01
• Series: Phenomenology and Mind
• Subjects: ambiguity; at-issueness; lexical semantics; semantic normativity
• Online Access: https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/pam/article/view/7268

In the first part of the article, we present the main approaches to analyze slurs’ content and we investigate the interaction between an assertion containing a slur and a denial (‘It’s not true that P’ / P is false’) showing to what extent a “neutral counterpart account” works better than a “dual account”. Additionally, the analysis offers the opportunity to discuss the usefulness of the notion of “at-issueness” for a debate on the lexical semantics of slurs. In the second part, we use our apparatus to analyze a real case of non-standard use of ‘frocio’ (‘faggot’). Our conclusion is that even if a family resemblance conception of category membership could account for these uses, it cannot account for the related semantic normativity problem.