Would you like Grice with that? Grades of speaker meaning and their comparative ramifications.
Human communication is unique. We talk about abstract entities, entities displaced in space and time, and even completely non-existent entities. Recent 'post-Gricean' explanatory accounts of communication attribute some of this uniqueness to the ‘fact’ that human communication involves acting with and attributing Gricean intentions. In response to an important objection that this would require recursive mindreading skills beyond those possessed by young children who nevertheless recognise speaker meaning, I critically examine a range of deflationary options. After endorsing some but not others, I consider the comparative ramifications. If expressing and recognising speaker meaning is simpler than Grice et al envisage, then perhaps other primates are doing it. Perhaps all (nonhuman) meaning is NOT natural meaning, contra Skyrms.