John Lyons. Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction. Cambridge, U.K.

: Cambridge
University Press. 1995.
Sir John Lyons's Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction (LSAI from now on) is a tolerable
addition to the list of half a dozen or so impressive titles he has produced on linguistic subjects
over the years. This book was initially planned to be a second edition of his Language, Meaning
and Context (Lyons 1981). However, in the end it turned out to be a successor and replacement.
For it is, in the author's words, a very different book compared to the 1981 volume: it is much
longer, treats topics missing in the earlier volume, and is written in a different style.
(Unfortunately, I am not familiar with (Lyons 1981) and the reader is asked to take these remarks
with a grain of salt.)
By `linguistic semantics' Lyons means the study of meaning systematically encoded in the
vocabulary/grammar of natural language. Thus, linguistic semantics is a branch of linguistics;
semantic issues which have more to do with philosophy belong, in Lyons's view, to the more
proper branch of philosophical semantics. Accordingly and understandably, Lyons devotes
limited space to philosophical problems while he cautions that nobody would be able to
appreciate modern linguistic semantics without some acquaintance with its philosophical
groundwork.
According to Lyons, LSAI can be used as a textbook for introductory semantics courses in
departments of linguistics. If one is familiar with various key issues in semantics, then this book
is quite enjoyable because Lyons is raising some interesting points and asking stimulating
questions. On the other hand, a beginner would be easily unsettled by the lack of exercises, light
(at times skin-deep) treatment of some very significant topics of semantics, and the generally
verbose writing style of Lyons. In fact, this last point needs some emphasis. To repeat the words
of Wittgenstein vis-a-vis a well-known philosopher (Rhees 1984, page 88): ``He is too long-
winded; he keeps on saying the same thing over and over again. When I read him I always
wanted to say, Oh all right, I agree, I agree, but please get on with it.''
It should be added that since LSAI is not a formal semantics book, it is natural that the writing
style suffers from a good deal repetition--probably thought of as a cure for ambiguity. In a
formally written book, the mathematics would take care of the rest, and less prose would be
needed. However, in LSAI there is only a minimal amount of mathematics. (This, by the way,
reminds me of Daedalus, an influential American journal which allows no formulas.)
LSAI consists of the following parts (each part is followed by the chapters comprising it):
1. Lexical meaning

It is the meaning of a word in isolations. This is the one usually given by the dictionary.
The term Lexical meaning is to be interpreted as the meaning of lexemes depends upon the
meaning of the sentences in which they occur. Lexical meaning gives an explanation to the
referential relations. The meaning of sequence of words is not always (wholly) predictable.
Many words are difficult to predict in a clear analysis component such as advice, threat, and
warning. The weakness is clear. Semantic feature reviews words of language as a container
containing sense component. In order to give the meaning of words, semantic feature is not
used but is needs a deeper analysis among words. This procedure also uses describe semantic
called lexical relations. Lexical meaning deals with homonymy, polisemy, and synonymy.


2. Sentence meaning

Sentence is a word from Latin. That is formed from the word centia means opinion. Here,
sentence is a group of related words containing a subject and predicate and expressing a
complete and independence unit of thought. The common definition of the sentences as a group
of words containing a subject and predicate sets up two of them: it requires that a sentence be of
more than on word, and that it be a structure of predication.

3. Utterance Meaning

We should draw a distinction between sentence meaning and utterance meaning, the
sentence meaning being directly predictable fromSentence meaning clearly fall within the
scope of linguistics semantics while utterance meaning (fall outside the province of linguistics
semantics, the investigation of utterance meaning is part of pragmatics). At the term utterance
is misleading. Utterances are usually taken to be unique speech event and no two utterances are
the same. If someone says it is a fine day, although this may be a single utterance, it is
interesting only an instance of the sentence it is a fine day. What Lyons means by utterance
meaning, then is a part of the meaning of a sentence that is not directly related to the
grammatical and lexical features, but is obtained either from associated prosodic and
paralinguistic features or from the context, linguistics and non linguistics, in which it occurs. So
it can be said that utterance meaning is product of sentence meaning and context. In general, the
meaning of an utterance will be richer than the meaning of the sentence from which it is derived.

4. Discourse Meaning

Discourse typically consists of more than a single sentence. A language permits
combining sentence together to express complete thoughts and idea. This makes language an
excellent medium for communication. The analysis of discourse is necessarily the analysis of
language in used. Generally, there are two kinds of language-spoken and written language.
Spoken is differ from writing. The notion of text as printed record is familiar in the study of
literature. While the problems encountered with the notion of text as verbal record of a
communication act become a good deal more complex when we consider what is meant by
spoken text. The simplest view to assume is that a tape recorder at a communicative act will
preserve the text.