Linguistics/Semantics
From Wikibooks, open books for an open world
This page may need to be [edit] Introduction
Semantics is the study of the literal meanings [1] of parts of language such as words, expressions or sentences. In other words we can say that semanticists try to make sense out of sounds.
Semantics is related to syntax, morphology, and pragmatics, and often overlaps with them.
[edit] Notes
- ↑ Note that a sentence such as "It's cold in here." may have two layers of meaning: the surface layer, making an assertion about the temperature, is within the domain of semantics, while its use as a request to have a window closed is covered by pragmatics, discussed in the following chapter.
