The term “meaning” expresses a close-knit family of concepts. In order to properly identify our subject, and to prevent equivocation, the concepts must be carefully identified and differentiated. In this chapter, we will distinguish speaker meaning from other types, and then discriminate several senses in which a speaker can mean something, defining them all in terms of expression, along with the related concept of speaker implication. Of particular importance for later developments will be the type of speaker meaning involving the expression of thoughts or ideas, in a sense of thought distinct from belief. Competing definitions of speaker meaning will be discussed in Chapter 4, after expression has been defined in Chapter 3. The reader might find it helpful along the way to examine Figure 2.1 at the end of this chapter, which presents all of the different senses of meaning we shall discuss in a classification tree.

SPEAKER, WORD, AND EVIDENTIAL SENSES

A glance through any dictionary will show that the most important and commonly used terms generally have a large set of meanings, some closely related and others quite distinct. “Means” is no exception. Since this is a book on meaning, it will be essential for us to distinguish the senses of “means” even more finely and more sharply than is profitable in a dictionary. The three most important senses for us are represented in the following sentences.

1. Boulders mean glacial activity. (Evidential Meaning)

2. “Boulder” means “large rounded stone block.” (Word Meaning)

3. By “boulder,” S means “kilo of cocaine.” (Speaker Meaning)