“In English, the study of meaning in language has been known by many names that involve the
Ancient Greek word
σῆμα (sema, "sign, mark, token").
In 1690, a Greek rendering of the term
semiotics, the interpretation of signs and symbols, finds an early allusion in
John Locke's
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:
The third Branch may be called
σηµιωτικὴ [simeiotikí, "
semiotics"], or the Doctrine of Signs, the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also
λογικὴ, Logick.
In 1831, the term
sematology is suggested for the third branch of division of knowledge akin to Locke; the "signs of our knowledge".
[2]
In 1857, the term
semasiology (borrowed from
German Semasiologie) is attested in
Josiah W. Gibbs' Philological studies with English illustrations:
[3]
The development of intellectual and moral ideas from physical, constitutes an important part of semasiology, or that branch of grammar which treats of the development of the meaning of words. It is built on the analogy and correlation of the physical and intellectual worlds.
In 1893, the term semantics is used to translate French sémantique as used by
Michel Bréal.
[4] Some years later, in Essai de Sémantique, Bréal writes:
[5]
What I have tried to do is to draw some broad lines, to mark some divisions and as a provisional plan on a field not yet exploited, and which requires the combined work of several generations of linguists. I therefore ask the reader to consider this book as a simple Introduction to the science I have proposed to call Semantics. [In footnote:]
Σημαντικὴ τέχνη, the science of
significations [i.e., what it means], from the verb
σημαίνω "to signify", as opposed to Phonetics, the science of sounds [i.e., what it sounds like].
In 1922, the concept of semantics is attested in
mathematical logic amidst a group of scholars in Poland including
Leon Chwistek,
Leśniewski,
Łukasiewicz,
Kotarbinski,
Adjukiewicz, and
Tarski. According to
Allen Walker Read, they had been influenced by French culture; moreover, later, their work influenced
Alfred Korzybski's usage of the term.
[2][6][7]
In the 1960s,
semantics for programming languages is attested in publications by
Robert W. Floyd and
Tony Hoare, later termed
axiomatic semantics; its chief application is
formal verification of computer programs. Some years later, the terms
operational semantics and
denotational semantics emerged.
[8] Floyd, in the lead to his 1967 paper Assigning meanings to programs, writes:
[9]
A semantic definition of a programming language, in our approach, is founded on a
syntactic definition. It must specify which of the phrases in a syntactically correct program represent
commands, and what
conditions must be imposed on an interpretation in the neighborhood of each command.
“
“In
linguistics, semantics is the subfield that studies meaning.
[10] Semantics can address meaning at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, or larger units of
discourse. Two of the fundamental issues in the field of semantics are that of
compositional semantics (which applies to how smaller parts, like words, combine and interact to form the meaning of larger expressions, such as sentences) and
lexical semantics (the nature of the meaning of words).
[10] Other prominent issues are those of
context and its role on interpretation,
opaque contexts,
ambiguity,
vagueness,
entailment, and
presuppositions.
[10]
Several disciplines and approaches have contributed to the often-disagreeing field of semantics. One of the crucial questions which unites different approaches to linguistic semantics is that of the relationship between form and meaning.
[11] Some major contributions to the study of semantics have derived from studies in the 1980–1990s in related subjects of the
syntax–semantics interface and
pragmatics.
[10]
The semantic level of language interacts with other modules or levels (like syntax) in which language is traditionally divided. In linguistics, it is typical to talk in terms of "interfaces" regarding such interactions between modules or levels. For semantics, the most crucial interactions are considered those with syntax (the
syntax–semantics interface),
pragmatics, and
phonology (regarding
prosody and
intonation).
[10]
Disciplines and paradigms in linguistic semantics
Main article:
Formal semantics (linguistics)
Formal semantics seeks to identify
domain-specific operations in minds which speakers perform when they compute a sentence's meaning on the basis of its syntactic structure. Theories of formal semantics are typically placed on top of theories of syntax, such as
generative syntax or
combinatory categorial grammar, and provided a model theory based on mathematical tools, such as
typed lambda calculi. The field's central ideas are rooted in early twentieth century
philosophical logic, as well as later ideas about linguistic syntax. It emerged as its own subfield in the 1970s after the pioneering work of
Richard Montague and
Barbara Partee and continues to be an active area of research.”
