Abstract
Most philosophers of language, especially those intrigued by Kripke’s Wittgenstein, would grant that for an expression to mean anything at all, there must be conditions under which it applies correctly, such that to apply it otherwise would be incorrect (or amount to a misapplication). If the uses of a sign, symbol, or word cannot be adjudged correct or incorrect, then it must be meaningless. Given that meaning implies conditions for correct use, if correctness is inherently normative, then semantic normativism is true: meaning has normative implications. My aim is to defend this very argument against some objections made by Anandi Hattiangadi, thereby revealing a plausible interpretation of semantic normativity that she has not duly considered. While possibly not prescriptive, the implications of meaning ascription – correctness conditions – may well be evaluative, and thus genuinely normative. That is, whether or not any ‘oughts’ are involved, meaning ascription has to do with value. Once some context for the normativity of meaning as well as an exposition of the said argument and Hattiangadi’s objection is presented, such an interpretation will surface out of my attempted response to her, before getting examined for the ‘argumentative weight’ expected of the normativity constraint.