Semantics

Semantics:is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata.

Linguistic: semantics is the study of meaning that is used by humans to express themselves through language. Other forms of semantics include the semantics of programming languages, formal logics, and semiotics.

The word "semantics" itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation. This problem of understanding has been the subject of many formal inquiries, over a long period of time, most notably in the field of formal semantics. In linguistics, it is the study of interpretation of signs or symbols as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts. Within this view, sounds, facial expressions, body language, and proxemics have semantic (meaningful) content, and each has several branches of study. In written language, such things as paragraph structure and punctuation have semantic content; in other forms of language, there is other semantic content.

The formal study of semantics intersects with many other fields of inquiry, including lexicology, syntax, pragmatics, etymology and others, although semantics is a well-defined field in its own right, often with synthetic properties. In philosophy of language, semantics and reference are closely connected. Further related fields include philology, communication, and semiotics. The formal study of semantics is therefore complex.

Semantics contrasts with syntax, the study of the combinatorics of units of a language (without reference to their meaning), and pragmatics, the study of the relationships between the symbols of a language, their meaning, and the users of the language.In international scientific vocabulary semantics is also called semasiolog.

Examples:I can’t dance means that, I’m unable to dance;it doesn’t mean that I m able not to dance.

House, plane, phone, sun, apple, computer, car, moon, ship, dog, eye, etc…

For example: in Middle English, the word "deer" meant "wild animal" or "beast", so the meaning of "We plan to hunt deer" has a different meaning then than it does now. As another example, the word "awful" originally meant "full of awe" instead of "frightful" or "very bad", so it also would have very different meanings depending on the context.

Semantics probably won't help you find out the meaning of a word you don't understand, though it does have a lot to say about the patterns of meaningfulness that you find in words. It certainly can't help you understand the meaning of one of Shakespeare's sonnets, since poetic meaning is so different from literal meaning. But as we learn more about semantics, we are finding out a lot about how the world's languages match forms to meanings. And in doing that, we are learning a lot about ourselves and how we think, as well as acquiring knowledge that is useful in many different fields and applications.