Semantics analyzes the meaning of linguistic signs and their combinations.
Semantics comes from a Greek word that can be translated as "meaningful." 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 seme as a common link. A clear example of this can be the semantic field made up of terms such as wall, wall or rampart because they have in common that they refer to types of walls.
Semantics, therefore, is linked to the meaning, sense and interpretation of words, expressions or symbols. All means of expression suppose 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 the expressions analyzed by semantics.
linguistic semantics
Linguistic semantics studies the encoding of meaning in the context of linguistic expressions. It can be divided into structural semantics and lexical semantics. Denotation (the relationship between a word and what it refers to) and connotation (the relationship between a word and its meaning according to certain experiences and context) are objects of interest in 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 proposed at the time by the American philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky.
Specifically, some of the illustrious people who were encouraged to delve deeper into the ideas of that master were the Scotsman James McCawley or the North American John R. Ross.
Semantics is related to the meaning and interpretation of symbols and words.
Logical significance problems
Logical semantics , on the other hand, is responsible for the analysis of logical problems of significance. For this, he studies the signs (parentheses, quantified, 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 in this area, structures and elements that relate to each other are established. This would be the case of groups and groups of various kinds.
Semantics in the cognitive sciences , as it focuses on the psychic mechanism between the interlocutors in the communicative process. The mind establishes permanent relationships between combinations of signs and other external facts that introduce meaning.
Finally we would have to determine that there is also what is known as semantic tracing. It is a term that is used to define the borrowing or adoption of a word from another language , which would be the translation.