John Lyons (1) (1932–2020)

A good broad but shallow overview of the entire field at a basic level, ca. 1980, although nothing really major has happened in terms of theory since then, to be honest :) I would say that if you read this book cover to cover and can really absorb all the concepts, you have virtually the equivalent of a BA in linguistics from a decent university. "Virtually" because the one thing that is conspicuously missing is lots of illustrative data from a variety of languages that a typical undergrad show more would normally be exposed to. But of course I don't fault the author for this, because it would have made the result too unwieldy for what I assume was his goal, and when he used the book to teach, no doubt he provided such data separately. show less

Probably a decent look at the field - in 1970. Forty years later its style seems very dry even for academic writing, and it seems to hit a sour spot - each article felt too short to get me interested in the subfield it discussed or explore a topic, but too technical to suit someone looking for a primer. In fairness, the back of the book says as much. It was intended as a report into developments in linguistics in 1970, for existing linguists, and unfortunately that very specific niche is show more really no longer relevant.

It's possible that if I was more interested in some of the subjects - generative grammar, say, or the semantic end of things - I'd have got more out of it. As it was the book failed to inspire me towards any of those topics, and had little to offer in my preferred areas of actual languages, comparative, social and anthropological issues. It had an emphasis on quite theoretical and brain-based topics that don't do much for me. show less

By a British linguist who, while paying attention to Chomsky, still manages to come up with other conclusions about language. this book influenced me greatly in grad school, teaching me about the folly of trying to isolate each "level" of language in order to explain it. Not surprisingly, even in this book Lyons discusses semantics and, later, produced two thick volumes on it, a pioneering study.

I've read several introductory texts and this is (overall) the best. The section on phonetics/phonology lacks the coherence of the Akmajian introduction, but the text is (generally) more substantial.