8 - Basic Word Meaning

Summary

Chapter 2 began with the fundamental distinction between speaker meaning and word meaning. Even though “banana” means a kind of fruit, Alfred Kahn once used it to mean a decline in the gross national product in order to make fun of politicians who wanted him to avoid the terms “recession” and “depression” because of their negative associations. We have defined what it is for a speaker to mean or express something in terms of the speaker's intentions. We must now begin analyzing what it is for a word or other expression to mean something or to express an idea. What makes it true, for example, that “vixen” means “female fox” in English, but does not mean anything in French? Why does “jument” mean “female horse” in French today, whereas earlier it meant “pack horse”?

It seems self-evident that such facts about English and French are determined in some way by facts about the individuals who have actually spoken English and French. It would be as hard to maintain that an abstract system such as English arose and evolved independent of the actions of concrete human beings as it would be to maintain that the species Canis familiaris arose and evolved independent of concrete dogs.