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Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction between sense and reference.
- Overview
- Varieties of meaning
- Compositionality and reference
semantics, the philosophical and scientific study of meaning in natural and artificial languages. The term is one of a group of English words formed from the various derivatives of the Greek verb sēmainō (“to mean” or “to signify”). The noun semantics and the adjective semantic are derived from sēmantikos (“significant”); semiotics (adjective and noun) comes from sēmeiōtikos (“pertaining to signs”); semiology from sēma (“sign”) + logos (“account”); and semasiology from sēmasia (“signification”) + logos.
It is difficult to formulate a distinct definition for each of these terms, because their use largely overlaps in the literature despite individual preferences. The word semantics has ultimately prevailed as a name for the doctrine of meaning, of linguistic meaning in particular. Semiotics is still used, however, to denote a broader field: the study of sign-using behaviour in general.
The notion of linguistic meaning, the special concern of philosophical and linguistic semantics, must be distinguished from other common notions with which it is sometimes confused. Among them are natural meaning, as in smoke means fire or those spots mean measles; conventional meaning, as in a red traffic light means stop or the skull and crossbones means danger; and intentional meaning, as in John means well or Frank means business. The notion of linguistic meaning, in contrast, is the one exemplified in the following sentences:
•The words bachelor and unmarried man have the same meaning (are synonymous).
•The word bank has several meanings (is ambiguous).
•The string of words colourless green ideas sleep furiously is meaningless (anomalous).
•The sentence all bachelors are unmarried is true by virtue of its meaning (is analytic).
•Schnee ist weiss means that snow is white.
A characteristic feature of natural languages is what is known as their productivity, creativity, or unboundedness. In natural languages there is no upper limit to the length, complexity, or number of grammatical expressions. (There are limits to the length, complexity, and number of expressions that a speaker of a natural language can understand or produce, but that is a fact about the speaker’s memory or mortality, not about the language itself.) In English and other natural languages, grammatical expressions of increasing length and complexity can be created from simpler expressions by concatenation, relativization, complementization, and many other devices. Thus, just as a tomato is better than an apple and an apple is better than an orange are sentences, so too is a tomato is better than an apple and an apple is better than an orange. Just as the apple is rotten is a sentence, so too are the apple that fell on the man is rotten, the apple that fell on the man who sat under a tree is rotten, and the apple that fell on the man who sat under the tree that blocked the road is rotten. And just as the Earth moves is a sentence, so too are Galileo believes that the Earth moves, the pope suspects that Galileo believes that the Earth moves, Smith fears that the pope suspects that Galileo believes that the Earth moves, and so on, with no obvious end.
The complex expressions generated by these devices are not only grammatical (assuming that their constituents are grammatical) but also meaningful (assuming that their constituents are meaningful). An adequate semantic theory, therefore, must account for this fact. In other words, it must explain how the meanings of complex expressions are determined by and predictable from the meanings of their simpler constituents. The fact that complex meanings are determined by the meanings of their constituents is often referred to as the compositionality of natural languages. A semantic theory that is capable of explaining compositionality is called compositional.
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The semantics involves understanding if “up for it” means the person is awake and available or if they are expressing their eagerness to participate in an activity. Linguists work with semantics to ensure that the intended message is conveyed and received accurately. How to Guide on Understanding Semantics
Journal of Semantics covers all areas in the study of meaning, with a focus on formal and experimental methods. It welcomes submissions on semantics, pragmatics, the syntax/semantics interface, cross-linguistic semantics, experimental studies of meaning, and semantically informed philosophy of language. Find out more.
26 gen 2010 · The first sort of theory—a semantic theory—is a theory which assigns semantic contents to expressions of a language. The second sort of theory—a foundational theory of meaning—is a theory which states the facts in virtue of which expressions have the semantic contents that they have.
Each book offers the ideal introductory material for each subject, presenting students with an overview of the main topics encountered in their course, and fea-tures a glossary of useful terms, chapter previews and summaries, suggestions for further reading, and help-ful exercises.
Semantics - Historical and contemporary theories of meaning: The 17th-century British empiricist John Locke held that linguistic meaning is mental: words are used to encode and convey thoughts, or ideas.
