abstrakt: The semantics of slurs has recently seen a flourish of theories aiming to explain a wide range of data about their linguistic behaviour (embeddings, various types of uses, etc.). In this presentation, I focus on what I call “rich-lexicon” theories, according to which the lexical entry/linguistic meaning of slurs is composed of several interrelated meaning dimensions from which a particular one is selected in a given context. Appeal to this type of theories supports a view of slurs as polysemous. I first present some of the data to be accounted for, and then offer a description of the commonalities shared by all rich-lexicon theories. Then I sketch a version of the view that I prefer (based on a proposal by del Pinal (2018)) and show how it deals with the data. I compare this theory with two extant rich-lexicon theories; those of Croom (2011, 2013) and Neufeld (2019, 2022); and assess them vis-à-vis their theoretical commitments and empirical adequacy. Finally, I gesture towards applying the rich-lexicon framework to other natural language expressions besides slurs, such as thick terms.

wykład odbędzie się w piątek 20 października o godzinie 17.45 w sali 28 (Grodzka 52) oraz online