37.1825, FYI: Polysemy in the Evaluative Sphere Seminar: Tamara Dobler, "Derogation by Co-composition: Nominal Structure and Evaluative Meaning"

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1825. Tue May 19 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1825, FYI: Polysemy in the Evaluative Sphere Seminar: Tamara Dobler, "Derogation by Co-composition: Nominal Structure and Evaluative Meaning"

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Valeriia Vyshnevetska
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Mara Baccaro, Daniel Swanson
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Daniel Swanson <daniel at linguistlist.org>

================================================================


Date: 19-May-2026
From: Dan Zeman [danczeman at gmail.com]
Subject: Polysemy in the Evaluative Sphere Seminar: Tamara Dobler, "Derogation by Co-composition: Nominal Structure and Evaluative Meaning"


Polysemy in the Evalutive Sphere is a seminar pertaining to the
project Slurs and the Lexicon: A Rich-Lexicon Approach to Slurs and
Other Evaluative Expressions - LEXISLUR
(https://danzeman.weebly.com/lexislur.html) featuring monthly talks by
specialists in polysemy. We cordially invite you to a talk by Tamara
Dobler (Free University of Amsterdam) entitled "Derogation by
Co-composition: Nominal Structure and Evaluative Meaning" (see the
abstract below). The event takes place online on Friday, MAY 22,
11.00-12.30 Western European Summer Time (WEST). Please write to
danczeman at gmail.com for the Zoom link.
All welcome!
ASBTRACT:
Slurs and other derogatory expressions are strikingly concentrated in
nominal constructions. This talk examines a systematic contrast
between adjectival and nominal uses of the same lexical item (i.e.,
cross-categorial polysemy):
(1) Charlie is gay/Black/disabled
(2) Charlie is a gay/a Black/a disabled
While the lexical root is held constant, nominal constructions readily
acquire derogatory or expressive interpretations. Existing accounts
explain this contrast in terms of kind reference and essentialism:
nominal constructions ascribe membership in a kind and thereby
encourage essentializing interpretations (Ritchie 2021; Neufeld 2019;
see Koch 2023; Schaden and Gasparri 2026).
I propose an alternative co-compositional account inspired by the
Generative Lexicon framework (Pustejovsky 1995; see also Zeman 2025;
Popescu and Zeman, forthcoming). The central claim is that derogation
emerges from the interaction between lexical roots and count nominal
structure. Roots are associated with heterogeneous conceptual content,
including socially shared beliefs and stereotypes, some of which may
carry evaluative or discriminatory content. Count nominal
categorisers, by contrast, impose individuation and kind-based
classification, requiring relatively stable criteria for category
membership. Through co-composition, salient evaluative associations
can thereby become category-constitutive. In other words,
co-composition with count nominal structure converts salient
evaluative associations into criteria for category membership.
This explains why nominal constructions tend to promote derogatory
interpretations, whereas adjectival predication merely attributes a
property without the same classificatory force. More generally, the
proposal argues that the perceived evaluative meaning is not purely
lexical, but emerges from the interaction between lexical content and
grammatical structure.

Linguistic Field(s): Philosophy of Language
                     Semantics
                     Syntax




------------------------------------------------------------------------------

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List, a U.S. 501(c)(3) not for profit organization:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=87C2AXTVC4PP8

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Bloomsbury Publishing http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/

De Gruyter Brill https://www.degruyterbrill.com/?changeLang=en

Edinburgh University Press http://www.edinburghuniversitypress.com

European Language Resources Association (ELRA) http://www.elra.info

John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/

Language Science Press http://langsci-press.org

Lincom GmbH https://lincom-shop.eu/

MDPI Languages https://www.mdpi.com/journal/languages

MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/

Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com

SIL International Publications http://www.sil.org/resources/publications


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1825
----------------------------------------------------------