semantics

The field of linguistics concerned with the study of meaning in language.

See also:

• Cognitive Grammar
• Entailment
• General Semantics
• Lexicalization
• Lexical Modality
• Logomachy
• Pragmatics
• Semantic Change
• Semantic Field
• Semantic Merger and Semantic Split
• Semantic Transparency
• Semiotics
• What Is Linguistics?
• World Knowledge

Etymology:

Observations:

• "The technical term for the study of meaning in language is semantics. But as soon as this term is used, a word of warning is in order.
  
  "Any scientific approach to semantics has to be clearly distinguished from a pejorative sense of the term that has developed in popular use, when people talk about the way that language can be manipulated in order to mislead the public. A newspaper headline might read. 'Tax increases reduced to semantics'--referring to the way a government was trying to hide a proposed increase behind some carefully chosen words. Or someone might say in an argument, 'That's just semantics,' implying that the point is purely a verbal quibble, bearing no relationship to anything in the real world. This kind of nuance is absent when we talk about semantics from the objective point of linguistic research. The linguistic approach studies the properties of meaning in a systematic and objective way, with reference to as wide a range of utterances and languages as possible."
  (David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook, 2006)



• "A perennial problem in semantics is the delineation of its subject matter. The term meaning can be used in a variety of ways, and only some of these correspond to the usual understanding of the scope of linguistic or computational semantics. We shall take the scope of semantics to be restricted to the literal interpretations of sentences in a context, ignoring phenomena like irony, metaphor, or conversational implicature."
  (Stephen G. Pulman, "Basic Notions of Semantics." SRI International, Cambridge, England)



• "[S]emantics is the study of the meanings of words and sentences. . . .
  
  "As our original definition of semantics suggests, it is a very broad field of inquiry, and we find scholars writing on very different topics and using quite different methods, though sharing the general aim of describing semantic knowledge. As a result, semantics is the most diverse field within linguistics. In addition, semanticists have to have at least a nodding acquaintance with other disciplines, like philosophy and psychology, which also investigate the creation and transmission of meaning. Some of the questions raised in these neighboring disciplines have important effects on the way linguists do semantics."
  (John I. Saeed, Semantics, 2nd ed. Blackwell, 2003)