Semantica

Semantica is the study of meaning in language, sign systems, and computation. In linguistics, semantics examines how words and phrases convey information, how lexical meaning interacts with sentence structure, and how context, world knowledge, and inference shape interpretation. It is distinguished from pragmatics, which focuses on use and context, and from syntax, which studies form and structure.

In linguistic semantics, researchers explore lexical semantics (sense, reference, polysemy, synonymy) and compositional semantics (how the meaning of larger expressions derives from their parts). Philosophical work on semantics investigates truth conditions, reference, and mental representation of meaning, with influential contributions from Frege, Montague, and later model-theoretic approaches such as possible worlds semantics.

In computer science, formal semantics describes the meaning of programming languages through operational, denotational, or axiomatic frameworks. This area underpins language design, compiler construction, and program verification. Beyond programming, semantic technologies aim to represent knowledge with machine-interpretable meaning, using ontologies, RDF, and OWL to support the semantic web, information retrieval, and AI applications.

Applied semantics also informs natural language processing, where semantic representations enable tasks such as disambiguation, inference, and question answering. The term semantica derives from Greek semantikos meaning significant, with sema meaning sign, reflecting the focus on meaning behind signs.