Semantics

Semantics is a key subfield of linguistics. While most scholars think first of syntax, morphology, and phonology as foundational areas of linguistics, semantics and pragmatics, sometimes studied together, form one of the dominant subfields of [Page 743]linguistics. Semantics focuses on the construction of meaning at the word level, sentence level, and paragraph level. The fields of psychology and philosophy have helped shape this subfield of linguistics. There are three traditional areas of semantics: (1) formal semantics, tied to logic and the philosophy of language; (2) lexical semantics, tied to word formation and meaning; and (3) cognitive semantics, tied to psychology and examining the underlying cognitive structures in the words and phrases. Semantics involves explorations of both the content and the character of utterances. Typical academic ...