a selective reading of the chapters based on need and interest is well worth it, especially if the need and interest are comparative semantic data, where Wierzbicka is at her best...This is a good and interesting book, it is well worth reading./William Frawley/Journal of Linguistics.

One cannot help but be impressed by the range of language-related topics Wierzbicka's work encompasses and by the thorough control commanded by her of the relevant literature pertaining to these diverse areas. Equally impressive are the insights that Wierzbicka's analyses provide.

Cecil H. Brown, Northern Illinois University, Anthropological Linguistics 39 No 1 1997

SCC is a welcome addition to Wierzbicka's inexhaustible semantic explications, revealing as it does a general theory and application that can be challenged, tested, and modified. The wide range of topics is typical of those that anyone involved in a cross-cultural work would need to explore, explain and translate ... such detailed analysis can help the native speakers of a language to become more aware of the semantic implications of the words and expressions that they use.

K.J. Franklin, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Journal of Linguistics