Semantics
Semantics (
Greek semantikos, giving signs, significant, symptomatic, from
sema,
sign) refers to the aspects of
meaning that are expressed in a language, code, or other form of representation. Semantics is contrasted with two other aspects of meaningful expression, namely,
syntax, the construction of complex signs from simpler signs, and
pragmatics, the practical use of signs by agents or communities of interpretation in particular circumstances and contexts. By the usual convention that calls a study or a theory by the name of its subject matter,
semantics may also denote the theoretical study of meaning in systems of signs.
Though terminology varies, writers on the subject of meaning generally recognize two sorts of meaning that a significant expression may have: (1) the relation that a sign has to objects and objective situations, actual or possible, and (2) the relation that a sign has to other signs, most especially the sorts of mental signs that are conceived of as
concepts.
Most theorists refer to the relation between a sign and its objects, as always including any manner of objective reference, as its
denotation. Some theorists refer to the relation between a sign and the signs that serve in its practical interpretation as its
connotation, but there are many more differences of opinion and distinctions of theory that are made in this case. Many theorists, especially in the
formal semantic,
pragmatic, and
semiotic traditions, restrict the application of
semantics to the denotative aspect, using other terms or altogether ignoring the connotative aspect.
In
linguistics,
semantics is the subfield that is devoted to the study of meaning, as borne on the syntactic levels of words, phrases, sentences, and sometimes larger units of discourse, generically referred to as
texts. As with any empirical science, semantics involves the interplay of concrete data with theoretical concepts, and specializations have developed that focus on different parts of that interaction, for example, the semantics of
natural languages and
formal languages, respectively.
Depending on the perspective taken up, semantics may include the study of connotative
sense and denotative
reference,
truth conditions,
argument structure,
thematic roles,
discourse analysis, and the linkage of all of these to syntax.
The decompositional perspective towards meaning holds that the meaning of words can be analyzed by defining meaning atoms or primitives, which establish a
language of thought. An area of study is the meaning of
compounds, another is the study of relations between different linguistic expressions (
homonymy,
synonymy,
antonymy,
polysemy,
paronyms,
hypernymy,
hyponymy,
meronymy,
metonymy,
holonymy,
exocentric, and
endocentric).
Many of the formal approaches to semantics applied in linguistics, mathematical logic, and computer science originated in techniques for the
semantics of logic, most influentially being
Alfred Tarski's ideas in
model theory and his
semantic theory of truth. Also,
inferential role semantics has its roots in the work of
Gerhard Gentzen on
proof theory and
proof-theoretic semantics. One of the most popular alternatives to the standard model theoretic semantics is
truth-value semantics.
In
computer science, considered in part as an application of
mathematical logic, semantics reflects the meaning of programs.
In
psychology,
semantic memory is memory for meaning, in other words, the aspect of memory that preserves only the
gist, the general significance, of remembered experience, while
episodic memory is memory for the ephemeral details, the individual features, or the unique particulars of experience.
Major theorists
*
Aristotle*
Thomas Aquinas*
Augustine of Hippo*
J.L. Austin*
Jeremy Bentham*
Rudolf Carnap*
Janet Dean Fodor*
Gottlob Frege*
Nelson Goodman*
H.P. Grice*
Jürgen Habermas*
Ray Jackendoff*
Saul Kripke*
John Locke*
John Stuart Mill*
Charles W. Morris*
Charles Sanders Peirce*
C.K. Ogden*
Plato*
I.A. Richards*
Bertrand Russell*
Ferdinand de Saussure*
Alfred Tarski*
Ludwig WittgensteinLinguistics and semiotics
*
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously*
Discourse representation theory*
General semantics*
Natural semantic metalanguage*
Pragmatic maxim*
Pragmaticism*
Pragmatism*
Semantic change*
Semantic class*
Semantic feature*
Semantic field*
Semantic lexicon*
Semantic progression*
Semantic property*
Semeiotic*
Sememe*
Semiosis*
SemioticsLogic and mathematics
*
Formal logic*
Game semantics*
Model theory*
Possible world*
Proof-theoretic semantics*
Semantics of logic*
Semantic theory of truth*
Truth-value semanticsComputer science
*
Axiomatic semantics*
Denotational semantics*
Formal semantics of programming languages*
Operational semantics*
Semantic integration*
Semantic link*
Semantic network*
Semantic spectrum*
Semantic web*
Theory-based semantics*
OWL*
Cypher Free software that converts natural language statements into semantic metadata representation
