Derogation by Co-composition: Nominal Structure and Evaluative Meaning

Tamara Dobler (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

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 [email protected] 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.