Thus we say, “By ‘kilogram’ I mean the
weight of one liter of water”, “By
‘A’ I mean ‘B’”,
where B is an explanation of “A”.
But there is also the intransitive use: “I said that I
was sick of it and meant it.”
Here again, meaning what you said could be called “retracing
it”, “laying an emphasis on it.”
But using the word “meaning” in this sentence makes
it appear that
131.
it must have sense to ask,
“
What did you mean?”, and to
answer, “By what I said I meant what I said”;
treating the case of “I mean what I say” as a special
case of “By saying ‘A’ I mean
‘B’.”
In fact one uses the expression, “I mean what I mean”
to say, “I have no explanation for it.”
The question, “What does this sentence
p
mean?”, if it doesn't ask for a translation of
p into other symbols, has no more sense than “what
sentence is formed by this sequence of words?”