Deutsche Gesellschaft
für phänomenologische Forschung

Buch | Kapitel

225013

Expressive terms

pejoratives and honorifics

Richard D. Kortum

pp. 102-118

Abstrakt

If we compare the sentences ‘This dog howled the whole night’ and ‘This cur howled the whole night’, we find that the thought is the same. The first sentence tells us neither more nor less than does the second. But whilst the word ‘dog’ is neutral as between having pleasant or unpleasant associations, the word ‘cur’ certainly has unpleasant rather than pleasant associations and puts us rather in mind of a dog with a somewhat unkempt appearance. Even if it is grossly unfair to the dog to think of it in this way, we cannot say that this makes the second sentence false. True, anyone who utters this sentence speaks pejoratively, but this is not part of the thought expressed (1897: 140).

Publication details

Published in:

Kortum Richard D. (2013) Varieties of tone: Frege, Dummett and the shades of meaning. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Seiten: 102-118

DOI: 10.1057/9781137263544_17

Referenz:

Kortum Richard D. (2013) Expressive terms: pejoratives and honorifics, In: Varieties of tone, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 102–118.