Abstract: Some authors have observed that the derogatory content conveyed by slurs exhibits features commonly associated with conventional implicatures and have therefore concluded that slurs conventionally implicate derogatory content. However, Nunberg (2018) argues that there is a class of special manner implicatures that share these features and that slurs give rise to such implicatures instead. This paper offers a detailed examination of manner implicatures and argues that while (i) Nunberg is right that certain manner implicatures behave like conventional implicatures, (ii) treating slurs as giving rise to manner implicatures faces a serious difficulty. For this reason, the talk concludes that a conventional implicature account of slurs is preferable.
Activities > Colloquium > Slurs and Bad Manners
