View source for Semantics

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{{semantics}}

'''Semantics''' is the study of meaning in [[communication]]. The word derives from [[Greek language|Greek]] ''σημαντικός'' (''semantikous''), "significant",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2393797|title=Semantikos, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', at Perseus}}</ref> from ''σημαίνω'' (''semaino''), "to signify, to indicate" and that from ''σήμα'' (''sema''), "sign, mark, token".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0058%3Aentry%3D%2329446|title=Semaino, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon'', at Perseus}}</ref> In [[linguistics]] it is the study of interpretation of signs as used by [[agent]]s or [[community|communities]] within particular circumstances and contexts.<ref name=Neurath:1955>
{{cite book|
 author = Otto Neurath (Editor), Rudolf Carnap (Editor), Charles F. W. Morris (Editor)|
 title = International Encyclopedia of Unified Science |
 publisher = University of Chicago Press |
 location = Chicago, IL |
 year = 1955 }}</ref> It has related meanings in several other fields.

Semanticists differ on what constitutes [[Meaning (linguistics)|meaning]] in an expression. For example, in the sentence, "John loves a bagel", the word ''bagel'' may refer to the object itself, which is its ''literal'' meaning or ''[[denotation]]'', but it may also refer to many other figurative associations, such as how it meets John's hunger, etc., which may be its ''[[connotation]]''. Traditionally, the [[formal semantic]] view restricts semantics to its literal meaning, and relegates all figurative associations to [[pragmatics]], but many find this distinction difficult to defend.<ref name=LakoffJohnson/> The degree to which a theorist subscribes to the literal-figurative distinction decreases as one moves from the [[formal semantic]], [[semiotic]], [[pragmatic]], to the [[cognitive semantic]] traditions.

The word ''semantic'' in its modern sense is considered to have first appeared in [[French language|French]] as ''sémantique'' in [[Michel Bréal]]'s 1897 book, ''Essai de sémantique'.
In [[International Scientific Vocabulary]] semantics is also called ''[[semasiology]]''.
The discipline of Semantics is distinct from [[General semantics|Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics]], which is a system for looking at non-immediate, or abstract meanings.

==Linguistics==
{{Cleanup|date=August 2008}}
In [[linguistics]], '''semantics''' is the subfield that is devoted to the study of meaning, as inherent at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, and even larger units of [[discourse]] (referred to as ''texts'').
The basic area of study is the meaning of [[sign (semiotics)|signs]], and the study of relations between different linguistic units: [[homonym]]y, [[synonym]]y, [[antonym]]y, [[polysemy]], [[paronyms]], [[hypernym]]y, [[hyponym]]y, [[meronymy]], [[metonymy]], [[holonymy]], [[exocentric]]ity / [[endocentric]]ity, linguistic [[compound (linguistics)|compounds]]. A key concern is how meaning attaches to larger chunks of text, possibly as a result of the composition from smaller units of meaning.
Traditionally, semantics has included the study of connotative ''[[word sense|sense]]'' and denotative ''[[reference]]'', [[truth condition]]s, [[argument structure]], [[thematic role]]s, [[discourse analysis]], and the linkage of all of these to syntax.

[[Formal semantics|Formal semanticists]] are concerned with the modeling of meaning in terms of the semantics of logic. Thus the sentence ''John loves a bagel'' above can be broken down into its constituents (signs), of which the unit ''loves'' may serve as both syntactic and semantic [[head (linguistics)|head]].

In the late 1960s, [[Richard Montague]] proposed a system for defining semantic entries in the lexicon in terms of [[lambda calculus]]. Thus, the syntactic [[parsing|parse]] of the sentence above
would now indicate ''loves'' as the head, and its entry in the lexicon would point to the arguments as the agent, ''John'', and the object, ''bagel'', with a special role for the article "a" (which Montague called a quantifier). This resulted in the sentence being associated with the logical predicate ''loves (John, bagel)'', thus
linking semantics to [[categorial grammar]] models of [[syntax]].
The logical predicate thus obtained would be elaborated further, e.g. using truth theory models, which ultimately relate meanings to a set of [[Tarski]]ian universals, which may lie outside the logic. The notion of such meaning atoms or primitives are basic to the [[language of thought]] hypothesis from the 70s.

Despite its elegance, [[Montague grammar]] was limited by the context-dependent variability in word sense, and led to several attempts at incorporating context, such as :
*[[situation semantics]] ('80s): Truth-values are incomplete, they get assigned based on context
*[[generative lexicon]] ('90s): categories (types) are incomplete, and get assigned based on context

===The dynamic turn in semantics===
In the [[Noam Chomsky|Chomskian]] tradition in linguistics there was no mechanism for the learning of semantic relations, and the [[Psychological nativism|nativist]] view considered all semantic notions as inborn. Thus, even novel concepts were proposed to have been dormant in some sense. This traditional view was also unable to address many issues such as [[metaphor]] or associative meanings, and [[semantic change]], where meanings within a linguistic community change over time, and [[qualia]] or subjective experience. Another issue not addressed by the nativist model was how perceptual cues are combined in thought, e.g. in [[mental rotation]].<ref>Barsalou, L. (1999). Perceptual Symbol Systems. ''Behavioral and Brain Sciences'' 22(4)</ref>

This traditional view of semantics, as an innate finite meaning inherent in a [[lexical unit]] that can be composed to generate meanings for larger chunks of discourse, is now being fiercely debated in the emerging domain of [[cognitive linguistics]]<ref name=Langacker:1999>
{{cite book
| author=Ronald W. Langacker
| title=Grammar and Conceptualization
| year=1999
|location=Berlin/New York| publisher=Mouton de Gruyer
| isbn = 3110166038
}}</ref>
and also in the non-[[Jerry Fodor|Fodorian]] camp in [[Philosophy of Language]].<ref
name=Peregrin:2003>
{{cite book
| author = Jaroslav Peregrin
| year = 2003
| title = Meaning: The Dynamic Turn. Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface
| publisher = Elsevier
| location = London
}}</ref>
The challenge is motivated by
* factors internal to language, such as the problem of resolving [[indexical]] or [[anaphora]] (e.g. ''this x'', ''him'', ''last week''). In these situations "context" serves as the input, but the interpreted utterance also modifies the context, so it is also the output. Thus, the interpretation is necessarily dynamic and the meaning of sentences is viewed as context-change potentials instead of [[propositions]].
* factors external to language, i.e. language is not a set of labels stuck on things, but "a toolbox, the importance of whose elements lie in the way they function rather than their attachments to things."<ref name=Peregrin:2003/> This view reflects the position of the later [[Wittgenstein]] and his famous ''game'' example, and is related to the positions of [[Willard Van Orman Quine|Quine]], [[Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Davidson]], and others.

A concrete example of the latter phenomenon is semantic [[underspecification]] &mdash; meanings are not complete without some elements of context. To take an example of a single word, "red", its meaning in a phrase such as ''red book'' is similar to many other usages, and can be viewed as compositional.<ref name=Gardenfors:2000>
{{cite book|
 author = P. Gardenfors |
 title = Conceptual Spaces |
 publisher = MIT Press/Bradford Books |
 location = Cambridge, MA |
 year = 2000 }}</ref> However, the colours implied in phrases such as "red wine" (very dark), and "red hair" (coppery), or "red soil", or "red skin" are very different. Indeed, these colours by themselves would not be called "red" by native speakers. These instances are contrastive, so "red wine" is so called only in comparison with the other kind of wine (which also is not "white" for the same reasons). This view goes back to [[Ferdinand de Saussure|de Saussure]]:
:Each of a set of synonyms like ''redouter'' ('to dread'), ''craindre'' ('to fear'), ''avoir peur'' ('to be afraid') has its particular value only because they stand in contrast with one another. No word has a value that can be identified independently of what else is in its vicinity.<ref>
{{cite book
|author = Ferdinand de Saussure
| title = The Course of General Linguistics (Cours de linguistique générale)
| year = 1916}}</ref>
and may go back to earlier [[Sanskrit Grammarian|Indian]] views on language, especially the [[Nyaya]] view of words as [[Semantic indicator|indicators]] and not carriers of meaning.<ref name=Matilal>
{{cite book
| author = [[Bimal Krishna Matilal]]
| title = The word and the world: India's contribution to the study of language
| publisher = Oxford
| year = 1990
}} The [[Nyaya]] and [[Mimamsa]] schools in Indian [[vyakarana]] tradition conducted a centuries-long debate on whether sentence meaning arises through composition on word meanings, which are primary; or whether word meanings are obtained through analysis of sentences where they appear. (Chapter 8). </ref>

An attempt to defend a system based on propositional meaning for semantic underspecification can be found in the [[Generative Lexicon]] model of [[James Pustejovsky]], who extends contextual operations (based on type shifting) into the lexicon. Thus meanings are generated on the fly based on finite context.

===Prototype theory===
Another set of concepts related to fuzziness in semantics is based on
[[Prototype Theory|prototypes]]. The work of [[Eleanor Rosch]] and [[George Lakoff]]
in the 1970s led to a view that
natural categories are not characterizable in terms of
necessary and sufficient
conditions, but are graded (fuzzy at their boundaries) and inconsistent as to
the status of their constituent members.

Systems of categories are not objectively "out there" in the world but are
rooted in people's experience. These categories evolve as [[learning theory (education)|learned]] concepts
of the world &mdash; meaning is not an objective truth, but a
subjective construct, learned from experience, and language arises
out of the "grounding of our
conceptual systems in shared [[embodied philosophy|embodiment]] and bodily experience".<ref name=LakoffJohnson>
{{cite book|
 author = George Lakoff and Mark Johnson|
 title = Philosophy in the Flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. Chapter 1. |
 publisher = Basic Books. |
 location = New York|
 year = 1999}}</ref>
A corollary of this is that the conceptual categories
(i.e. the lexicon) will not be identical for
different cultures, or indeed, for every individual in the same culture. This
leads to another debate (see the [[Whorf-Sapir hypothesis]] or [[Eskimo words for snow]]).

English nouns are found by language analysis to have 25 different semantic features, each associated with its own pattern of fMRI brain activity. The individual contribution of each parameter predicts the fMRI pattern when nouns are considered thus supporting the view that nouns derive their meaning from prior experience linked to a common symbol.<ref>{{cite journal|author = Mitchell TM, Shinkareva S, Carlson A, Chang K, Malave V, Mason R, Just M. date=[[2008-05-08]]|title= Predicting Human Brain Activity Associated with the Meanings of Nouns|journal= “Science”|volume= 320|pages= 1191–1195| doi=10.1126/science.1152876|pmid=18511683}}</ref>

<!-- ==Logic and mathematics==
Many of the formal approaches to semantics in [[mathematical logic]] and [[computer science]] originated in the study of [[philosophy of language]]. Initially, the most influential semantic theory stemmed from [[Gottlob Frege]] and [[Bertrand Russell]]. Frege and Russell are seen as the originators of a tradition in [[analytic philosophy]] to explain meaning via syntax and mathematical functionality. [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]], a former student of Russell, is also seen as one of the seminal figures in the analytic tradition. All three of these early philsophers of language were concerned with how sentences expressed information in the form of [[propositions]] and with the truth values or [[truth conditions]] a given sentence has in virtue of the proposition it expresses.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
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==Psychology==
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. Word meaning is measured by the company they keep; the relationships among words themselves in a [[semantic network]]. In a network created by people analyzing their understanding of the word (such as [[Wordnet]]) the links and decomposition structures of the network are few in number and kind; and include "part of", "kind of", and similar links. In automated [[ontologies]] the links are computed vectors without explicit meaning. Various automated technologies are being developed to compute the meaning of words: [[latent semantic indexing]] and [[support vector machines]] as well as [[natural language processing]], [[neural networks]] and [[predicate calculus]] techniques.




===Major philosophers and theorists===
* [[Gottlob Frege]]
* [[Bertrand Russell]]
* [[Alfred Tarski]]
* [[Rudolf Carnap]]
* [[P.F. Strawson]]
* [[H.P. Grice]]
* [[J.L. Austin]]
* [[Keith Donnellan]]
* [[Charles E. Osgood]]
* [[Saul Kripke]]
* [[John Perry]]
* [[Nathan Salmon]]
* [[Scott Soames]]
* [[Noam Chomsky]]
* [[David Kaplan]]
* [[Nelson Goodman]]
* [[Jürgen Habermas]]
* [[Ray Jackendoff]]
* [[John Lyons]]
* [[Richard Montague]]
* [[Charles Sanders Peirce]]
* [[C.K. Ogden]]
* [[I.A. Richards]]
* [[Benjamin Whorf]]
* [[Anna Wierzbicka]]
* [[S. I. Hayakawa]]
* [[Alfred Korzybski]]
* [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]]
* [[George Lakoff]]
* [[Leonard Talmy]]
* [[W.V.O. Quine]]
* [[Donald Davidson (philosopher)]]
* [[Michael Dummett]]


==See also==
* [[Categorization]]
* [[Discourse analysis]]
* [[Inferential role semantics]]
* [[Meaning]]
* [[Metaphor]]
* [[Morphology (language)]]
* [[Phonology]]
* [[Priming]]
* [[Semantic priming]]
* [[Semantic satiation]]
* [[Syntax]]
* [[Verbal meaning]]
* [[Vocabulary]]
* [[Words (phonetic units)]]

===Linguistics and semiotics===
* [[Asemic writing]]
* [[Colorless green ideas sleep furiously]]
* [[Computational semantics]]
* [[Discourse representation theory]]
* [[General semantics]]
* [[Natural semantic metalanguage]]
* [[Onomasiology]]
* [[Pragmatic maxim]]
* [[Pragmaticism]]
* [[Pragmatism]]
* [[Semantic change]]
* [[Semantic class]]
* [[Semantic feature]]
* [[Semantic field]]
* [[Semantic lexicon]]
* [[Semantic progression]]
* [[Semantic property]]
* [[Semeiotic]]
* [[Sememe]]
* [[Semiosis]]
* [[Semiotics]]
* [[Problem of universals]]
* MWANSA

===Logic and mathematics===
* [[Formal logic]]
* [[Game semantics]]
* [[Model theory]]
* [[Proof-theoretic semantics]]
* [[Semantics of logic]]
* [[Semantic consequence]]
* [[Semantic theory of truth]]
* [[Truth-value semantics]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==Further reading==
Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and Cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic Structures. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

==External links==
* [http://semanticsarchive.net/ semanticsarchive.net]
* [http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/semantics.htm Teaching page for A-level semantics]
* [http://blip.tv/file/471951 Noam Chomsky, On Referring, Harvard University, 30 October 2007(video)]
* [http://blip.tv/file/509192 Ray Jackendoff, Conceptual Semantics, Harvard University,13 November 2007(video)]
* [http://www.semantic-systems-biology.org Semantic Systems Biology]

[[Category:Grammar]]
[[Category:Semantics|Semantics]]
[[Category:Social philosophy]]
[[Category:Greek loanwords]]



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