Grice's Yawn

by JLS
for the GC

M. Green wrote on "Grice's Frown", brilliantly. Now, THAT is a cryptic case by Grice. I was recently re-reading his "Meaning Revisited", and he has this example,

"By that gesture he meant that he was fed up".

So, Grice was still using 'mean' without scare quotes -- unlike Stevenson, who the early Grice worshipped.

This from today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/science/28qna.html

"As for why people yawn, “it is not entirely known,” Dr. Ebben said. “However, the most recent data suggests that it is part of a thermoregulatory response that helps cool the brain by shunting blood to facial muscles that act as radiators and offload heat from the redirected blood.”"

----

To reconsider, then, using Grice's neologism, almost, of 'mean':

"That yawn meant-nn that he was fed up"

---- "I mean 'that gesture' in the use apt for communication" -- or something, Grice has it.

----

"That yawn meant-nn that he was fed up."

Strictly, what that yawn 'meant' -- as Stevenson properly would have it in scare quotes -- is something else:

"That yawn 'meant' that the system is displaying a

part of a thermoregulatory response
to help cool the brain

--- and that response is effected

by

shunting blood to the facial muscles
which act as radiators and
thus offload heat from the redirected blood."

Or something.

Cheers.