After a brief outline of the book, Criticism is offered on the following points. 1) whether or not the verb 'say' is a general performative? 2) can belief-Objects be represented adverbially? 3) does ziff succeed in refuting grice's theory of meaning? 4) ziff's omission of the illocutionary domain.

If a speaker says something in a language and one of the listeners knows L but another does not, then, normally, A will understand what S said but B will not. What is it, exactly, that A, but not B, succeeds in doing in this case, and how to account for the difference? This is a fundamental problem, which the philosophy of language should be able to solve, yet, to my knowledge, has not done so to date.

If a speaker says something in a language and one of the listeners knows L but another does not, then, normally, A will understand what S said but B will not. What is it, exactly, that A , but not B , succeeds in doing in this case, and how to account for the difference? This is a fundamental problem, which the philosophy of language should be able to solve, yet, to my knowledge, has not done so to date.