Semanticism

Semanticism is a term used in philosophy of language and linguistics to describe theories that treat linguistic meaning as determined primarily by semantics—the systematic relationships between signs (words, phrases, sentences) and what they denote—rather than by pragmatics or context of use. In semanticist approaches, the content of a sentence is understood through its semantic composition and its truth-conditions, with much work formalized via model-theoretic semantics or possible-worlds semantics.

Core ideas include compositionality (the meaning of a whole expression follows from the meanings of its parts and their syntactic combination), and the view that reference and sense are explained within a semantic framework that links language to reality through denotation and truth conditions. This approach underlies much of formal linguistics, including Montague grammar and subsequent extensions to indexicals, modality, and propositional attitude reports.

Semanticism is often contrasted with pragmatic theories that emphasize context, speaker intention, and conversational implicature. Critics argue that semanticism alone cannot account for context-sensitivity, figurative language, and many non-literal uses; defenders respond that pragmatics explains what goes beyond meaning while semanticism fixes the core content.

Historically, semanticist ideas trace to Fregean truth-conditional semantics and were developed through Tarski-style theories, later expanding in the 20th century with formal semantics and Montague’s program, which significantly influenced contemporary linguistics and philosophy of language. The term can be used with varying emphases across disciplines, from a broad focus on semantics to a stricter, truth-conditional program.