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The Concept of Semantics
INTRODUCTION TO SEMANTICS
Semantics is the area of linguistics dealing with the meaning of words or
the meaning attached to words or symbols. This view places semantics
at the core of communication in language. Indeed, there is no
communication without the sharing of meaning.
The Definition of Semantics
Semantics as a term was first formally used by Breal in 1897. Hence, we
can deduce that Breal was the first to bring to the fore in a formally
acceptable way, the nature of meaning in language. Though the quest for
the understanding of meaning has always been of interest to scholars,
semantics was not mentioned as a term and did not come up in literature
until 1897 when it was first used by Breal. This first attempt to study
meanings by philosophers brought about the area of semantics called
philosophical semantics, which examines the relationship between
linguistic expressions and the phenomena they refer to in the external
world. Philosophical semantics focuses on examining the conditions
under which such linguistic expressions and the phenomena they refer to
are true or false. This can be traced to as far back as Plato and
Aristotle’s works.
However, contemporary philosophical semantics can be traced to the
works of the following authors: Rudolf Carnap (1891 - 1970), Alfred
Tarski (Born 1902) and Charles Peirce (1839 - 1914). According to
Peirce, philosophical semantics developed as Semiotics in America
while with the influence of Saussure in France, the term “semiology”
was used. However, the idea of truth-based semantics was Tarski’s
major contribution.
Linguistic semantics emphasises the properties of natural languages
while pure or logical semantics is the study of the meaning of
expressions using logical systems or calculi. Examining semantics in
this dimension makes it more mathematically related than linguistic in
nature. It is important to note that the discussion of semantics as a
branch of linguistics began recently and this shall be our next focus.