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In general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos, or "significant meaning," derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. Semantics is often opposed to syntax, in which case the former pertains to what something means while the latter pertains to the formal structure/patterns in which something is expressed (e.g. written or spoken).

Several more particular senses of the word can be identified:

1 In linguistics

Semantics is a subfield of linguistics that is traditionally defined as the study of meaning of (parts of) words, phrases, sentences, and texts. Semantics can be approached from a theoretical as well as an empirical (e.g. psycholinguistic) point of view. The decompositional perspective towards meaning holds that the meaning of words can be analyzed by defining meaning atoms or primitives, which establish a language of thought. An area of study is the meaning of compounds, another is the study of relations between different linguistic expressions ( homonymy, synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, hypernymy, hyponymy, meronymy, holonymy, exocentric , and endocentric ). Semantics includes the study of thematic roles, argument structure, and its linking to syntax. Semantics deals with sense and reference, truth conditions and discourse analysis. PragmaticsPragmatics is generally the study of natural language understanding, and specifically the study of how context influences the interpretation of meanings. It is a subfield of linguistics. Context here must be interpreted as situation as it may include any is often considered a part of semantics.

1.1 See also

• semantic classA semantic class is words that share a semantic property. Semantic classes may intersect. The intersection of female and young can be girl''. See also: Semantic feature, Categorization Semantics.
• semantic featureA Semantic feature is a notational method which can be used to express the existence or non-existence of semantic properties by using plus and minus signs. Man is [+HUMAN], [+MALE], [+ADULT] Woman is [+HUMAN], [-MALE], [+ADULT] Boy is [+HUMAN], [+MALE], [
• semantic progressionSemantic progression describes the evolution of word usage — usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. Examples demagogue Originally meant "a popular leader". It is from the Greek demagogos (leader of the
• semantic propertyA semantic property consists of the components of meaning of a word. The component female is a semantic property of girl woman actress etc. See also: Semantic class, Semantic feature Semantics.

2 In mathematics and computer science

"Semantics" is also used as a term in mathematicsMathematics is commonly defined as the study of patterns of structure, change, and space; more informally, one might say it is the study of "figures and numbers". In the formalist view, it is the investigation of axiomatically defined abstract structures and computer scienceIn its most general sense, computer science CS or compsci is the study of computation and information processing, both in hardware and in software. Introduction Computer science encomposses a variety of topics relating to computation, ranging from abstrac.