Semantikat

Semantikat, or semantics, is the branch of linguistics and philosophy that studies meaning in language. It investigates how words, phrases, and sentences encode information, how truth conditions arise from utterances, and how linguistic meaning relates to world knowledge. Semantics is typically distinguished from pragmatics, which considers meaning in context, speaker intent, and use.

The term semantikat derives from Greek sēmantikos and has been developed in Western thought since the 19th century. Early work by Frege on sense and reference laid the groundwork for formal analyses, while the 20th century saw substantial contributions from logical theories of meaning and from Bréal, who emphasized semantic function. In modern linguistics, the field integrates philosophy of language, cognitive science, linguistics, and computer science.

Theoretical approaches include formal or truth-conditional semantics, which uses logic and possible-worlds semantics to predict when sentences are true; lexical semantics, which studies word meaning, polysemy, and semantic relations such as synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy; and cognitive or constructionist semantics, which connects meaning to mental representations and usage. Formal semantics often relies on tools like lambda calculus and model theory, while cognitive approaches stress grounding in perception and action.

Applications of semantikat include lexicography, language teaching, natural language processing, machine translation, and information retrieval. Ongoing debates address how meaning is constructed across languages, how context alters interpretation, how semantic change occurs over time, and how non-literal language such as metaphor and irony fits into a semantic theory.