Thismonograph, published by Oxford University Press in 2017, is contributed by Peter Lasersohn, a professor of linguistics and philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This book, also serving as Book 8 of Oxford Studies in Semantics and Pragmatics, investigates the meaning of sentences expressing subjective judgment on the basis of truth-theoretic semantics, significantly indicating the current development and the latest research findings of the linguistic semantic studies, particularly on the formal account of mental representations of language users.

To start with, in Chapter 1, the author introduces the goal of this book and makes a basic distinction between sentences expressing matters of opinion and sentences expressing matters of fact. The former concerns the subjective judgment of the reality, and the latter describes the objective properties of the world. In the next chapter, Peter Lasersohn reviews several analyses for sentences about matters of opinion, including indexical analyses, quantificational analyses, and analyses in the view of expressivism as well as those from metalinguistic or metacontextual perspectives. For him, these analyses do not provide satisfactory interpretations on personal taste sentences. The truth of such a sentence is virtually relative to some parameters, whose values are definitely indeterminate by matters of fact. Accordingly, relativist semantics is supposed to be another alternative to sentences denoting personal tastes. The content of Chapter 3 covers the discussion of the indexical use of pronouns, the semantic content of negation, and the intension context of the use of an expression, with an aim to present the general syntactic and semantic assumptions of relativist treatment of personal taste sentences. More theoretic backgrounds for relativism are offered in Chapter 4, with the supporting arguments from the analysis of verb tense and expressions of spatial location and orientation, such as here and in front of. To show a full picture of a relativist semantic theory, Chapter 5 further extends or even revises the grammatical knowledge that has been presented in the previous two chapters. Here, simple cases with taste predicates appearing in main clauses are examined in the framework of truth-theoretic semantics. As for Chapter 6, the ways in which indexicality can be hidden and disguised are generalized, including phonological reduction, pro-drop, syntactic ellipsis, constructional indexicality, and sublexical indexicality. Based on this analysis, the author reasons that the hidden or disguised indexicality substantially entails a variation in the semantic content of the sentence expressing opinion in line with pragmatic contexts, thus assigning relative truth values to this kind of linguistic expression. A system of truth assessment is scrutinized in great detail in Chapter 7. According to this system, the uses of sentences are assigned truth values via the contexts of assessment, which provides perspective parameters, such as an individual or a speaker, a time, and a world. In Chapter 8, Lasersohn lays more emphasis on the discussion of sentences ascribing mental attitudes. In his view, attitude predicates in sentences create intentional contexts, and the combination of phrases with attitude predicates denotes semantic contents, which reveal the pairing of world and perspective. The research on the selection of stance in communication through the investigation of attitude predicates is outlined as one of the future directions in semantic studies. The relation between relative truth and speech acts is the core concern of Chapter 9. Speech acts, such as assertion, questioning, and ordering, are meticulously surveyed in association with philosophical, functional, and teleological perspectives. For Chapter 10, the semantic distinction between sentences expressing matters of fact and sentences expressing matters of opinion is further elaborated through examples, where predicates indicate aesthetic quality, contingent future, or epistemic modals. Finally, the last chapter focuses on discussion about space and logic space, reliability-based semantic content, and the functional motivation for a relativist semantic theory. In the eyes of the author, the truth values of personal taste sentences vary with perspectives to observe the objective world, and the relative values of these sentences are assumed to be judged in accordance to their context of use.

Traditionally speaking, sentences whose truth or falsity seems a matter of opinion rather than a matter of fact are not the core concern of truth-value semantics. This book, however, claims that the semantic contents of sentences expressing subjective judgment are fundamentally based on facts and have truth values connected with the perspective taken by a speaker or a hearer. Specifically, within the framework of truth-theoretic semantics and with the help of logic language, the author provides an elaborate and persuasive analysis of a given personal taste sentence, especially in terms of the tense, semantic quantification, anaphor, indexicality, the time and space the speech act occurred, as well as the intentionality and attitude of the interlocutor, thus signifying a remarkable new method, namely the formal approach to the mental representations of language users, and accordingly widening the research scope of formal linguistic studies.

Meanwhile, the formalist strategy employed in this monograph to define the truth values of sentences concerning subjective judgment evidences the key role of the cognitive-functional viewpoint in understanding the meaning of linguistic structures. Broadly speaking, a meaning consists of both conceptual content and a particular way of construing that content (Langacker Reference Langacker2008 : 43). Perspective is one of the basic elements of construal principle (Langacker Reference Langacker2008 : 73–85). The parameters of perspective are detailed in this book as speaker, time, space, speech act, and other contexts of sentence use. Then, the perspective-oriented truth value is virtually rooted in the interaction of these parameters.

Furthermore, this formal approach to the subjective interpretation of reality essentially reveals the relativity and dynamicity of meaning constructed in linguistic communication. The indexicality of a pronoun or a proper noun is a case in point. ‘I am Smith’ might entail different semantic contents and the resulting relative and dynamic truth values, due to the indexicalities of ‘I’ and ‘Smith’ varying with different speakers. Viewed in this way, it is not surprising that “I am not Smith” is possibly not the negation of ’I am Smith’ at the semantic level. The relative and dynamic truth values of sentences expressing matters of opinion, in fact, designate that the semantic meaning of these linguistic expressions is to some extent characterized by subjectivity and non-compositionality.

Nevertheless, the truth value of a given sentence expressing matters of opinion is obviously determined not only by the parameters of perspective but also regulated by such factors as gestures, facial expressions, and intonations that exhibit in speech acts. Consequently, a truth-theoretic semantics undoubtedly faces challenges in its attempt to offer a unified generalization about the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties of such kinds of sentences. Another drawback to this monograph is that the figurative meaning of a sentence expressing subjective judgment, such as ‘he is a pig’, which metaphorically means ‘he is stupid’, is excluded from the focus of discussion.

However, taking into account its profound implications for further studies on the formal representation of mental states of language users and the studies on syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface from the perspective of philosophy of language, this monograph is worthy of being recommended to various levels of readers in linguistic studies.