Semantics

Semantics is the branch of linguistics and philosophy concerned with the study of meaning in language. It investigates what meaning is, how linguistic expressions acquire meaning and how the meaning of complex constructions depends on their constituent parts. Central to this field is the distinction between sense, the conceptual content associated with an expression, and reference, the object or entity to which the expression points. Semantics stands alongside syntax, which governs grammatical structure, and pragmatics, which deals with meaning in use and context. As an academic discipline, semantics draws upon linguistics, philosophy, semiotics, psychology and computer science, making it foundational to the study of language, communication and logic.

Definition and Related Fields

Semantics examines the mechanisms through which linguistic expressions—ranging from morphemes and words to full sentences and texts—encode and convey meaning. Its scope can be confined to one language or, more broadly, concern meaning structures common across languages. The discipline aims to describe the workings of meaning without prescribing how expressions should be interpreted.
Several major questions guide semantic inquiry:• How do the meanings of individual words combine to form the meanings of sentences?• How does meaning relate to the mental states of language users and the entities to which expressions refer?• What role do context, usage and conceptual structure play in determining meaning?
Semantics is primarily aligned with linguistics, semiotics and philosophy. As part of semiotics, it focuses specifically on linguistic signs, whereas semiotics itself studies all forms of signs, including gestures, symbols and natural indicators. The relation between semantics, syntax and pragmatics can be summarised as follows: semantics studies the relation between words and the world, syntax examines relations among words themselves and pragmatics concerns the relation between words and their users.
Associated fields include etymology, which investigates how meanings evolve over time; hermeneutics, which studies methods of interpretation; and metasemantics, which explores the metaphysical basis of meaning. The term semantics derives from the Ancient Greek word for “sign” and entered English in the late nineteenth century via French linguistic scholarship.

Basic Concepts: Meaning

Meaning in semantics refers specifically to the meaning of linguistic expressions rather than broader philosophical notions such as the meaning of life. Meaning involves the interpretation of signs and the information they contain. Lexical semantics focuses on the meanings of individual words, often linked to mental concepts, such as the association between the word dog and the concept of a four-legged domesticated animal. Phrasal semantics, by contrast, studies sentence meaning, typically represented as propositions expressing states of affairs.
Semantics distinguishes between sentence meaning, which is context-independent, and utterance meaning, investigated in pragmatics. For example, a sentence used ironically may convey a meaning different from its literal semantic content. Semantics prioritises public or shared meaning, such as dictionary definitions, while speaker meaning refers to private associations that individuals may attach to expressions.

Sense and Reference

A foundational distinction in semantics is that between sense and reference. Reference concerns the actual objects or entities in the world to which expressions correspond. Sense refers to the mode of presentation or conceptual pathway through which a referent is identified. Thus, two expressions may share a reference but differ in sense, as in the case of Venus and evening star, which both refer to the same planet but convey different conceptual content.
Sense may be viewed as a mental phenomenon enabling language users to identify referents. Some semantic theories place greater emphasis on sense, while others focus primarily on reference, depending on whether the central concern is conceptual structure or external objects.

Branches of Semantics

Semantics encompasses several specialised subfields:
• Lexical semantics investigates word meaning, polysemy, synonymy, antonymy and semantic fields. It also studies relations such as hyponymy, where one term denotes a subtype of another.• Phrasal or compositional semantics explores how the meaning of a sentence arises from the meanings of its parts and the rules governing their combination, a principle known as compositionality.• Formal semantics employs tools from logic, mathematics and set theory to model meaning with precision, particularly truth conditions and logical structure.• Cognitive semantics examines meaning from the standpoint of mental representation and conceptualisation, positing that language is deeply intertwined with general cognitive processes.• Computational semantics applies semantic theories to natural language processing, enabling machines to interpret and generate meaning.• Cultural semantics investigates how meaning is shaped by cultural practices, norms and shared knowledge.
These branches often interact, providing complementary perspectives on how linguistic meaning is structured and interpreted.

Theories of Meaning

Various theoretical approaches attempt to explain the nature of meaning and how expressions acquire it:
• Direct reference theories maintain that an expression’s meaning is simply the object or state of affairs to which it refers.• Ideational theories hold that meaning consists of the mental images or ideas associated with expressions.• Causal theories propose that meaning is fixed by causal interactions between speakers and the environment, often analysed behaviouristically in terms of stimuli and responses.• Truth-conditional semantics explains meaning in terms of the conditions under which a sentence would be true.• Verificationist theories emphasise the methods of verifying a proposition as central to its meaning.• Meaning-as-use theories, inspired by later Wittgenstein, suggest that meaning derives from how expressions are used in everyday language practices.• Inferential role semantics argues that meaning is determined by the inferential relationships an expression has within a broader network of linguistic commitments.
These diverse approaches reflect the complexity of meaning and the need for multiple frameworks to capture its linguistic, psychological and philosophical dimensions.

Historical Development

Although semantic inquiry dates back to antiquity, with philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle exploring how language relates to thought and the world, semantics emerged as a distinct field only in the nineteenth century. Developments in logic, philology and psychology played key roles in its formation. In the twentieth century, advances in analytic philosophy, formal logic and generative linguistics further refined semantic theory, while the rise of computer science and artificial intelligence expanded its relevance to machine processing of language.

Relevance and Applications

Semantics is essential to numerous disciplines. In formal logic, it provides truth-theoretic frameworks for evaluating arguments. In computer science, it informs the design of knowledge representation systems, ontologies and natural language processing technologies. In psychology, semantics offers insights into how meaning is represented and accessed in the mind.