Explanation
Semantics is the branch of linguistics that studies meaning, relations among meanings, and the interpretation of linguistic expressions. It asks how words and sentences relate to objects, properties, and possible states of affairs, how composition produces complex meaning from parts, and how ambiguity, inference, or semantic change can be described. Meaning is neither merely an inner image nor wholly identical with observable use. Form, world knowledge, convention, and context interact, while theories draw the boundary with pragmatics differently. The conceptual movement proceeds from an individual expression through contrasts and sentence structure to testable conditions of interpretation, returning with a limited account of what language encodes and what context supplies.
Movement of thought
1. A linguistic expression is first observed across concrete utterances whose possible interpretations are compared. 2. Contrasts with related expressions and systematic semantic relations constrain which meaning components should be proposed. 3. Rules of composition show how word meanings and grammatical structure contribute to sentence interpretation and inference. 4. Contextual variation tests what remains stably encoded and what arises through reference, implicature, or world knowledge. 5. Semantic analysis returns as an explicit model that explains data, admits counterexamples, and exposes its interfaces.
Scientific use case
Lexical semantics studies word fields and polysemy; formal semantics models truth conditions, quantification, and inference; cognitive and historical semantics investigate conceptualisation and semantic change. Experiments and corpora test models against usage data.
Example
“All sources were checked” and “Not all sources were checked” differ through the scope of negation. The latter permits unchecked sources but does not necessarily assert that none were checked.
Counterexample
Two people may pursue different goals with the same sentence without the sentence having different encoded meanings. Their pragmatic intentions must be examined separately from semantic content.
Distinction
Distinguish semantics from pragmatics as the study of contextual language use, semiotics as a general study of signs, lexicography as dictionary practice, and metapragmatics as reflection on usage. Their boundaries are theoretically contested but must be stated analytically.
Effect on thought and perception
Semantic analysis makes assumptions about meaning explicit and testable. Overly rigid models may nevertheless underestimate context, variation, and historically or culturally distinct conceptualisations.
Resonance
An expression never stands alone; its meaning answers other signs, possible worlds, and situations. Within this mesh of relations it acquires a provisionally determinate contour.
Etymology
Technical core term; individual etymological review pending
Provenance
ATLAS 241 residual-case triage → profile candidate 241-C → source and neighbourhood cross-check → ATLAS 244
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Semantics“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-CORE-244-012. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-CORE-244-012The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
The English Bréal volume of 1900 makes the study of meaning visible both in its title and as a programme of inquiry. Bréal presents his work as an introduction to a field requiring sustained collective investigation, with particular attention to psychological and historical changes in signification. Postgate’s separate preface adds methodological distinctions between investigating contemporary meanings and reconstructing their history. He warns that surviving usages recorded at the same time need not have originated at the same time: a document may preserve an old remnant beside a recent innovation. This is especially important for our historical profiles, where a dated occurrence cannot simply be declared a coinage. The two voices in the volume must remain distinguishable; Postgate’s proposals are not sentences by Bréal. Neither the book’s date nor the French influence on its terminology proves that the English word began in 1900. Indeed, the dictionary inspected in this pass reports an earlier English use. The Atlas can take from this historical programme a demand to explain changes of meaning, not merely list them. Later formal and other approaches require further sources; this volume does not stand for the entire modern discipline.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Semantics appears here as a historical-psychological research programme; a dated occurrence is not a coinage, and Bréal’s approach does not represent the whole later discipline.
References for the historical section
- Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, semantics · Word History; Etymology and First Known Use where supplied; numbered senses
The public entry was read on 3 October 2026. A dictionary’s first-known-use date is not proof of coinage or of every later specialised sense. Missing derivations or dates are not supplied by inference.
- Michel Bréal, Semantics: Studies in the Science of Meaning, translated by Mrs. Henry Cust, preface by J. P. Postgate, 1900; Internet Archive item semanticsstudie01postgoog, OCR witness · Bréal’s Introduction, p. 8; J. P. Postgate’s preface, pp. lvi–lviii
Selected English OCR passages read, not collated against page images. The OCR title page says New York: Henry Holt, MDCCCC; the item catalogue says London: Heinemann. This discrepancy is retained for facsimile review. OCR omits or corrupts parts of the text; only readable passages are used. Postgate’s preface is not attributed to Bréal. No English first-use claim from this translation.