Grice and the intransitive use of "mean"

Speranza I've been recently considering this, even if I haven't checked all serious sources! At http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mean we read about the fascinating history (so different from 'significare') of "mean": "From Middle English menen, from Old English mǣnan (“to mean, signify, consider”), from Proto-Germanic *mainijanan (“to mean, think”), from Proto-Indo-European *mein- (“to think”). Cognate with West Frisian miene (“to deem, think”), Dutch menen (“to believe, think, mean”), German meinen (“to think, mean, believe”). Related to mind and German Minne (“love”)." and we have a short note: "(intransitive) To have intentions of a given kind. [from 14th c.] Don't be angry; she meant well." Of course, significat. As in "Mary signifies" is yet another animal in Latin. Given that 'significare' already incorporates a direct object (sign-i-fy, i.e. to 'make' a sign), it is otiose to regard, "Mary signifies" (Maria significat) as intransitive. Yet, with Mary means. one wonders. Not I, but one. --- The point has to do with things as we review basic Griceian philosophical literature in this or that Latin vernacular (French, Italian, etc.). The idea that 'significare' DOES translate as "mean" seems otiose. --- There seems to be this issue of transitivity at large. If "significare" does translate as "mean", we would have a typical dyadic relation: x means y x signifies y I am reminded of Grice in WoW: "On general grounds of economy, I am inclined to think that if one can avoid saying that the word so-and-so has this sense, that snese, and the other sense, or this meaning and another meaning, if one can allow them to be variants under a single principle, that is the desirable thing to do: don't multiply senses beyond necessity. And it occurs to me that the root idea in the notion of meaning [cfr. Latin 'significatio' -- Speranza], which in one form or adaptation or another would apply to both of these cases ['natural' as in "That rainbow means rain" and otherwise, as in ""Rainbow" means rainbow"] is that if x means that y, then this is equivalent to, or at least contains as a part of what it means, the claim that y is a consequence of x. That is, what the cases of natural and nonnatural meaning have in common is that, on some interpretation of the notion of consequence, y's being the case is a consequence of x". I was VERY amused to see (read, rather) in Hobbes's "Computatio" that while Hobbes sticks to that odious distinction, in Grice's view, between signs being natural or conventional, Hobbes goes on to argue for the idea of 'consequentia' (term used by Hobbes) to cover both cases. Hobbes is relying on Occam, or Ockham, as I prefer -- as per place in Surrey -- whom Grice is by the way alluding to in his famous 'semantic' razor. In any case, back to Mary means. Or as per wiki dictionary: "(intransitive) To have intentions of a given kind. [from 14th c.] Don't be angry; she meant well." We would need to trace all or the main historical references there, in the 14th century. In any case, since "meinen" does mean "think" in German, one wonders about Descartes: I think; therefore, I am. Is it necessary that one should think SOMETHING? But back to "mean": "(intransitive) To have intentions of a given kind. [from 14th c.] Don't be angry; she meant well." "Don't be angry. Mary meant well." Note the otiose, 'well'. As opposed to "ill-meaning". She meant ill. It seems that without the 'well', "May means" sounds as too short an utterance for one to bother to utter. As opposed to Descartes's perhaps similarly otiose, "Cogito". Descartes: "I think." Hobbes: You think. You think _what_? Descartes: No. You miss my point. I think. Therefore, I am. --- Did Descartes mean well? Or more briefly, did he mean? And so on. Cheers.