Semantics

Semantics, the study of word meaning and sentence meaning, abstracted away from contexts of use, is a descriptive subject. It is an attempt to describe and understand the nature of the knowledge about meaning in their language that people have from knowing the language. It is not a prescriptive enterprise with an interest in advising or pressuring speakers or writers into abandoning some meanings and adopting others (though pedants can certainly benefit from studying the semantics of a language they want to lay down rules about, to become clear on what aspects of conventional meaning they dislike and which they favor). A related point is that one can know a language perfectly well without knowing its history. While it is fascinating to find out about the historical currents and changes that explain why there are similarities in the pronunciations or spellings of words that share similarities in meaning – for example: arms body parts, arms weapons, army, armada and armadillo – this kind of knowledge is not essential for using present-day English, so it is not covered here. Historical linguists investigating language change over time sometimes concern themselves with semantic (and pragmatic) matters. They are then doing historical (linguistic) semantics (and/or pragmatics).

Semantic description of language knowledge is different from the encyclopedia maker’s task of cataloguing general knowledge. The words tangerine and clementine illustrate distinctions that are not part of our knowledge of English, but rather a fruiterer’s kind of expertise, which some other people also know, but which most users of English do not have to know. As long as they are aware that these are citrus fruits, they do not need English lessons on this point.