As we are discussing under "Meany", contributed by Tim W., Stevenson was scared:
"A reduced temperature may,
on occasion, but then on another
occasion not, 'mean' that the
patient (as we now may call her)
is convalescent".
("People speak like that" -- he adds).
This is in a rather popular book back in the day (I treasure my paperback copy at the TSPL -- the swimming pool library):
Stevenson, Ethics and Language, 1944
-- THE ONLY ref. given by Grice in "Meany".
---
Now, browsing the OED (unlike Grice, I do dictionaries), I find (thanks to R. Hall):
Under 'emotive':
1944 C. L. Stevenson Ethics & Lang. iii. 59
"Emotive meaning is a meaning in which the response (from the hearer's
point of view) or the stimulus (from the speaker's point of view) is a
range of emotions."
Now, Grice does quote precisely that edition in his 'Meaning' (1948) repr.
in _Studies in the Way of Words_, and so he must have been aware that
Stevenson took "emotive" from Ogden/Richards.
(I am happy to say that thanks to yours truly and that's J. L. Speranza, Grice is now properly credited in the new Routledge edition of Richads/Ogden, Meaning of Meaning, ed. J. C.).
Of course, Grice goes on to refute Stevenson. But the 'scary' stuff remained.
For, Grice SHOULD have maintained the scares in things like
Those spots 'mean' measles.
--
Grice's example, as he wants to leave boring MEAN-N behind and head for MEAN-NN (the only sort of meaning that needs no scare quotes) is:
(1) Jones is about to leave. Puts on his hat.
Does this, Grice asks, means that Jones means that he is about to leave by
putting on his hat!?
Well, _yes_, but in a causal, "natural" manner. Not the type involved in
communication.
Grice writes:
"It is no doubt the case that many people have a tendency to put on a tailcoat when they think they are about to go to a dance, and it is no doubt also the case that many people, on seeing someone putting on a tailcoat, would conclude tht the person in question was about to go to a dance. Does this satisfy us that putting on a tailcoat means (non-naturally) that one is about to go to a dance (or indeed means-nn
anything at all?).
Second range of examples:
(2) Jones is a wigger.
(Wigger is slang for "white nigger"). Is that derogatory? How are we to
analyse "wigger" without appeal to prejudices and emotional attitudes which
Richards delighted in? (I am currently studying slurs like those).
Grice's example is less controversial.
"If this is not enough, there is a difficulty -- REALLY THE SAME DIFFICULTY -- which Stevenson does recognise: how we are to avoid saying that
(3) Jones is a tall. (or a polymath)
is part of what is meant by
(4) Jones is an athlete (or is called Alchourron).
Since to tell someone that Jones is an athlete will TEND to make you
believe that Jones is _tall_. Here, Stevenson includes the "defeater":
(5) An athlete may _not_ be tall.
"Very helpful!", Grice writes.
"Moreover one wants to ask Stevenson why, if it is legitimate to appeal here to rules to distinguish what is meant from what is implicated this appeal was not made earlier by Stevenson for the case of "groaning"!"
Etc.
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Here are some principles to destroy:
ReplyDelete1. The only question A may ever ask himself about a perception (including, but not limited to, the receipt of an utterance), is "What thing that I could not reasonably infer before can I reasonably infer now?"
2. Utterances should raise useful inferences as efficiently as possible.
3. The tokens selected to raise an inference are selected on the basis of their ability to raise an inference efficiently. Accordingly, one ought never ask, technically, what a phenomenon, including a word or other verbal cue, "means," but how its use raises inferences.
4. At the meta level, we need words to help us raise inferences about inferences. One of those words is "mean." The etymology is irrelevant. What matters are the inferences the token can be used to raise. And in the case of "mean," the inference is that an inference can be drawn. "p means q" can always be translated as "p entitles A to infer q." "Those spots mean measles" is equivalent to "Those spots entitle A to infer measles." Thus, wherever a phenomenon p entitle me to infer q, it is appropriate for me to say "p means q." Aa a wise man once said, everything else is commentary.
Good point.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to look for the cognate in my vernacular.
Note the French:
they say 'vouloir dire'.
"Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire?"
"Sir, What d'you mean, sir?"
---
"Qu'est-ce que vous signifiez?"
is possibly too academic.
But they would then, as per Kramer, just speak of the
L'inferANce
-- Oddly, there was a group in Paris that met on Wednesday nights by the Pont Neuf.
It was a group for the investigation of inference and (in general) elementary comprehension,
G group pour la
R reserache de l'
I inference et la
C comprehension
E elementaire
-- and Recanati was part and parcel of it!
Interesting that you look to "vouloir dire" when "querer decir" is available.
ReplyDeleteRight. "Querer decir". But as my teacher in the Romance Languages (J. Solodow, PhD Harvard on Ovid) remarked to me: "Nobody needs to know Spanish. But French, yes. It's mandatory.
ReplyDelete"vouloir dire" is perhaps more refined than 'querer'. "Querer" is apparently a very vulgar Hispanic idiom from Latin quaerere. This meant, obviously, 'inquire' in Latin (Apparently, the Latins that were sent to Hispania could not keep track with the lingo of Rome and started to corrupt the little traces of it that they were left with.
ReplyDelete"Vouloir", on the other hand, connects with 'will', and so it is cognate with a good idea held by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons: it's the WILL to say.
"The inquisition to say" (querer decir) sounds more of a stretch to me. But I do suppose the implicature is pretty much the same.
I re-read Kramer's thing and he does say, "principles to destroy"! But hey I'm not that gladiatorial! (or epagogic, as Grice would say: epagogue vs. diagoge).
--- Those spots mean measles
Those spots [want-to-say, will-to-say]
measles.
--- I am so corrupted by the Romancers here, that I cannot imagine the poor little spots meaning measles unless they actually will to scream, "MEASLES"!
Kramer is right: "etymology can only confuse at this point".
ReplyDeleteHis idea to take 'mean' as a logical device for
license in inference.
Seems good. Perhaps there is a caveat to be done when it comes to _cats_.
Surely a cat will not _infer_ as we do, but this smell of (whatever it is they smell) may mean that there is (whatever it is that originates that smell).
Or a blood hound if you wish.
So indeed, there is like a continuum, where
U utterer
A addresee
--- And Kramer is willing to say that "U" is a bit of a stretch here:
Those dark clouds 'mean' rain.
In my reply to Tim W. we consider the 'that'-clauses following. Grice notoriously and funnily write:
"The specification of the non-natural meaning of items can be comfortabaly done via the use of phrases in quotation marks [scare quotes, as I prefer], whereas it would seem RATHER odd to say that those black clouds meant 'It will rain'" (WoW:291).
Some observations, fast:
* Grice is right that, in English, 'mean' is best used in the past: "Those black clouds meant ...". His analysis, the final one, in "Utterer's meaning and intentions" is along the lines, "U meant that p", etc. A sort of ex-post-facto. U intended, etc. It seems odd to say that I spent all Saturday meaning this or that.
* My refocus on these scare quotes was motivated by Tim W. wanting me to understand that while it does make sense to add scare quotes in
those spots 'mean' measles
it "would not do" he writes, but he'll reconsider, to have them in:
those spots mean 'measles'.
Etc.
Spanish
ReplyDeletequerer decir
French
vouloir dire
Italian: "voglio dire", I mean to say. I want to say.
---- The case may be done for 'dire' ('decir') not being really 'linguistic' here. After all, etymologically, in things like
magister dixit
-- the master showed it (to me) -- the idea is that 'dic-' is like 'signal'. So those spots will to signal measles.
Of course the addition of 'will to' is redundant, if this is a 'factive' case and those spots cannot 'will to signal' measles unless they do signal 'measles' which is equivalent to the fact that 'measles' is out there to be signalled. Etc.
--- Significare seems much more remote. It invokes the idea of 'make'. As in 'make a cake', 'make a mistake'. And it's a SIGN that we make. The Greek idea, semeion, is simpler.
In Spanish, 'ensenar', to teach, is cognate, in matter of speaking, with 'teach'. Both relate to the idea, Augustinian in nature, I think, that to teach is to show signs (or tokens). Hence the idea that master-dixit, I assume. If it were so easy!
I sort of like the semiotics of the romance "wants to day." Again, whatever the etymology of "querer," it has come to mean "to desire," and, thus (I suppose) "to love," and I like the idea that all we can know about a word is what, pathetic fallacy and all, it wants to say.
ReplyDeleteThe cat thing interests me, because I see inferences as mere way stations on the way to action. The "real" question that A must ask himself is not "what may I now infer?" but "How shall this thing I have perceived affect my behavior?" Humans break up the inquiry, asking first what the intellect may infer from the thing perceived, and moving on the what action should follow. In the case of more reflexive responders, the inference can be skipped and we can use "mean" where the thing perceived gives A good reason to take a specific action. To an antelope, the scent of a lion means "run."
Good. I expand on this in "What Grice Is Wanting to Say", this blog for your first paragraph.
ReplyDelete-- basically the point of
i. The floor needs sweeping. The floor wants sweeping.
and I suppose your pathetic fallacy, which leads you to accept that
ii. This word (or Grice for that matter, vide his "Studies in the Way of Words" -- just joking there -- one is supposed to read it -- don't you hate the imperative, in scholars, 'vide' this, 'vide that'. Aren't THEY supposed to be teaching us?)
is not SAYING anything. It's only wanting to say. As when the floor wants a good sweep.
--- Regarding the antelope, I'll write a passage right now. And report back on this thread.