Musings on Language

[Silvuh]

There's probably a more specific word in "Language" for what I'm getting at here, but ... Anyway.

So it was raining the other day, and I got out my umbrella. Well, half of the loops are torn on this umbrella, so I have this awkward triangle shape barely covering my body. And I said to myself, "Wow, I really need a new umbrella." That got me thinking about the word "Need".
I know there have been times before where I've said "I need X," and the other responded "You don't need X," with emphasis to distinguish between "wants and needs".
I was taught in Elementary school that the three basic needs are Water, Food, and Shelter. (I've seen Clothing listed as a need, but nudists can fair well in their communities.) Everything else is a "want". For some reason, it wasn't until the other day that I thought, "Well ... If the word 'need' can only be applied to three things, then what good of a word is that?"
And, instantly, I thought about unspoken conditionals. When we say we "need" something, it's always for some purpose. "I need a new umbrella to replace this old one; it barely keeps me dry!" To complete "replace old umbrella" you would in fact "need a new umbrella." It would be senseless to say "I want a new umbrella," in this case. (Of course, I am assuming an old umbrella will be replaced with a new one, not, like, a daily newspaper or something.)
So when we say we need something, the listener can assume there's some unspoken conditional behind that statement. There are many other instances in language where unspoken information is inherent in a statement.

Another one of my musings has been on the question "How much do you have to read?" When I said this to someone, I pondered the ambiguity of "have". I thought of two ways to interpret this: using "have" as in the sentence "I have two feet," and as in the sentence "I have to work late today." One "have" indicates possession and the other indicates obligation.
And while typing this up, I just realized ... in speech, I would shorten the obligation use to "haf'ta read?" while in the possessive case, I would say "have t'read?" Because obligation is always "have to" and ... yeah. So it would not be ambiguous if I said it aloud.


But, yes. So I am quite interested to see what all little musings you all have had on language like this.
And if you live in another country and English isn't your first language, anything you've thought about those languages will be just as welcome in this thread! In fact, I'd like to see some comparing English to other languages, too.