Waleed K.

Abdulabbas
October 19, 2018

Book Review-PhD Program

Semantics Class-Professor Qassim

Book title: Semantics: An Introduction to Meaning in Language:

An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Third Edition

By Alan Cruse
Strengths of this book
• Strong treatment of semantics in one volume
•Thorough exemplification, as well as debate questions with
suggested answers
• Comparison of the main theoretical approaches and perspectives

This book provides pure introductory ideas to the ways semantic

and denotation meaning is commuted through in language. The
book displays and explains the in prolixity and subtlety the
concept of meaning, with the aid of multitude of examples and
exercises throughout the text.

The book is clearly written and is highly readable. It is written

with stylish and wit-wise manner. The author’s conclusion is
that meaning in language is not tied to any specific theory, but
supports explanations of theoretical approaches and perspectives
as the context demands, with a emphasis throughout on the necessity for conceptualization
clarity.

The author points out that he writes to present a homogeneous theory of meaning in language as
he clearly states that “Since it is not intended to acquaint non-specialists with the range of
semantic phenomena in language, there is a bias towards descriptive coverage at the expense of
theoretical rigor’’ (p. 18). However, the critical positions of the author have not been thoroughly
covered due to the volume constraints and the objective that its geared to work as an introduction
to the conceptual meaning. Meaning in Language includes four parts and 20 chapters. I will
present succinctly each chapter’s content.

Alan Cruse provides a professional survey of the ecology of meaning in language, starting form
covering the principal landmarks in semantics. The author intends to present and discuss the
amazingness and difference of meaning, and to reach this goal, he provides plethora of examples
throughout the book.

Part 1
The introduction is followed by chapters on logic, meaning, and concepts. Furthermore,
fundamental notions are introduced offering a foundation for discussions subsequently
suggested. Then, basic concepts of semiotics, compositionality, types, and dimensions of
meaning are discussed. Alan Cruse raises questions and provides reflections based on definitions
Waleed K. Abdulabbas
October 19, 2018
of the variation between sentence meaning, utterance meaning, and statement meaning. There are
more fundamental tools from the field of logic and meaning to be presented as well.

Part 2
It deals with words and meaning. The chapter discusses lexical units, contextual variability of
meaning, paradigmatic relations of identity, paradigmatic relations of exclusion and opposition,
lexical hierarchies, syntagmatic semantic relations, dimensions and structures of lexical senses,
approaches to the specification of word meaning, and extensions of meaning.

Part 2 as well builds on lexical semantics and its idiosyncrasy. Polysemy, contextual variability
of word meaning, and discussions of paradigmatic sense relations of inclusion and identity. This
part according to many reviewers, is the most interesting contribution of this section of the book.
It addresses what the author calls the ‘dynamic construal approach’ for meaning study and
presents new concepts and positions, which deal with meanings and structural semantic
properties as ‘online construals on occasions of use, and not as inherent properties of lexical
items’ (p.271).

Part 3
This part deals with grammatical meaning building on nouns and noun phrases, argument
structure, verbs and adjectives, prepositions, and derivational affixes. Each chapter ends with
Discussion questions. Though it is made up of just one chapter and does not offer a thorough
account of the subject, it covers all the basics. The chapter offers some insights of distinct
approaches from traditional to more illuminating approaches of the meaning of major
grammatical categories.

The strength of this book is its careful discussion of the main concepts underlying meaning and
the analysis conducted as well as mentioning in the bibliography the main theorists of the field of
semantics. The author brings together his own observations and claims that, although the
phenomenon of the meaning is still somewhat patchy, progress has undoubtedly been made. This
book can surely be considered for courses dealing with semantics. Scholars doing research in the
field of semantics will absolutely find it significantly useful. The breadth of the topics makes it a
enjoyable to read.

The Author

Alan Cruse was formerly Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at Manchester University. He is the
author of Lexical Semantics (1986), Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and
Pragmatics (2nd edition 2004), joint author (with W. Croft) of Cognitive Linguistics (2004), and
joint editor (with P. Lutzeier, F. Hundsnurscher, M. Job) of Handbook of Lexicology (Vol. 1,
2002, Vol. 2, 2005).

Reference

Cruse, D. (2011). Meaning in language: an introduction to semantics and pragmatics. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.