What Grice Is Wanting To Say

We are translating Grice's Meaning to Hindustani (which both of us ignore). Kramer proposes "gihbhad" for "mean". I think 'schwictobhaba' sounds better. I base my claim on the availability of 'vouloir dire' to mean 'mean'.

Kramer objects:


"[Unlike you] I sort of like
the semiotics of the romance "wants to say."
Again, whatever the etymology of "vouloir"
it has come to mean "to desire (to do)"
[e.g. Nicole Kidman,
Voulez vous couchez avec moi, ce soir?]
And, thus (one assumes) "to love,"
[ot at least, 'go to bed' -- 'couchez']
and I do like the idea that all we
can know about a word is what,
pathetic fallacy and all, it desires to say
(to us, that is)."

---

We propose,

x (token of class X) means that p
x wants-to-say (vouloir dire) that p.

----

One objection here is 'want'.

i. The floor wants sweeping.

I.e.

ii. Someone should sweep the floor. It obviously _lacks_ a good sweep.

If all words can do is _want_ to say, then they are not saying anything.

Which is fine with me, but it's back to Square One, in the case of Griceanism, which I happen to be defending.

Etc.