What Does semantics Mean
Semantics comes from a Greek word that can be translated as "significant . " It is about that belonging to or relative to the meaning of the words . By extension, the study of the meaning of linguistic signs and their combinations is known as semantics .
Hence, it is also necessary to refer to the existence of what is known as the semantic field. This is a term that is used to define a set of words or significant elements that have a similar meaning since they have a sema as a common link.
A clear example of this can be the semantic field made up of terms such as wall, wall or wall because they have in common that they refer to types of walls.
Semantics, therefore, is linked to the meaning, meaning and interpretation of words, expressions or symbols. All means of expression assume a correspondence between expressions and certain situations or things, whether in the material or abstract world. In other words, reality and thoughts can be described through expressions analyzed by semantics.
The linguistic semantics studies the codification of the meaning in the context of linguistic expressions. It can be divided into structural semantics and lexical semantics. The denotation (the relationship between a word and what to regard) and connotation (the relationship between a word and its meaning according to certain experiences and context) are objects of interest of semantics.
The study of the referent (what the word denotes, such as a proper name or a common noun) and the meaning (the mental image that the referent creates) are also part of linguistic semantics.
Within this type of semantics we would have to refer to what is known as generative semantics. This term is used to refer to a program carried out by a group of scholars in the mid-20th century. What was done with it was to expand and develop the theories raised at the time by the American philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky.
Specifically, some of the illustrious characters who dared to delve into the ideas of that teacher were the Scotsman James McCawley or the American John R. Ross.
The logical semantics , on the other hand, is responsible for analyzing the logical problems of significance. For this he studies the signs (parentheses, quantized, etc.), the variables and constants, the predicates and the rules.
Hence precisely this type of semantics is the one used in the field of science, specifically mathematics. And it is that in this area structures and elements are established that are related to each other. This would be the case of groups and groups of various kinds.
Finally, semantics in cognitive sciences focuses on the psychic mechanism between the interlocutors in the communicative process. The mind establishes permanent relationships between combinations of signs and other external events that introduce meaning.
Finally, we would have to determine that there is also what is known as a semantic tracing. It is a term that is used to define the loan or adoption of a word from another language for what would be the translation.