The expressive dimension

TLDR: The authors developed a general theory of volatile, indispensable meanings of expressives and developed a multidimensional theory of descriptives and expressives, based on a class of expressive indices that determine the expressive setting of the context of interpretation.

Abstract: Expressives like damn and bastard have, when uttered, an immediate and powerful impact on the context. They are performative, often destructively so. They are revealing of the perspective from which the utterance is made, and they can have a dramatic impact on how current and future utterances are perceived. This, despite the fact that speakers are invariably hard-pressed to articulate what they mean. I develop a general theory of these volatile, indispensable meanings. The theory is built around a class of expressive indices. These determine the expressive setting of the context of interpretation. Expressives morphemes act on that context, actively changing its expressive setting. The theory is multidimensional in the sense that descriptives and expressives are fundamentally di erent but receive a unified logical treatment.