Semantics

语义学

A major branch of linguistics devoted to the study of meaning in language. The term is also used in philosophy and logic, but not with the same range of meaning or emphasis as in linguistics. Philosophical semantics examines the relations between linguistic expressions and the phenomena in the world to which they refer, and considers the conditions under which such expressions can be said to be true or false, and the factors which affect the interpretation of language as used. ‘Logical’ or ‘pure’ semantics (formal semantics) is the study of the meaning of expressions in terms of logical systems of analysis, or calculi, and is thus more akin to formal logic or mathematics than to linguistics. Different linguists’ approaches to meaning none the less illustrate the influence of general philosophical or psychological positions. Structural semantics displays the applications of the principles of structural linguistics to the study of meaning through the notion of semantic relations. Semantic meaning may here be used, in contradistinction to ‘grammatical meaning’. The linguistic structuring of semantic space is also a major concern of generative linguistics, where the term ‘semantic’ is widely used in relation to the grammar’s organization (one section being referred to as the semantic component) and to the analysis of sentences (in terms of a semantic representation) and of lexical items (in terms of semantic features). Other terms used to distinguish features of meaning in this and other theories include ‘semantic markers / distinguishers / properties’ and (in an unrelated sense to the above) ‘semantic components’.

语言学一大分支，研究语言的意义。这一术语也用于哲学和逻辑学，但其涵义不像语言学那么广，地位也不那么重要。哲理语义学考察词语与其所指的外界现象之间的关系，考虑这些词语可判断为真或假的条件和影响语言使用和理解的因素。“逻辑”或“纯理”语义学是用分析的逻辑系统或演算来研究词语的意义，因此更接近于形式逻辑或数学而不是语言学。语言学的研究重点在自然语言（而不是逻辑“语言”）的语义特性，为便于区别常用“语言语义学”称之。不同的语言学家对意义的研究取向体现出一般哲学或心理学立场的影响。结构语义学是用结构语言学的原则借助语义关系的概念来研究意义。这里可用“语义意义”的名称来区别于“语法意义”。“语义空间”的语言结构方式也是生成语言学主要关心的问题，其中“语义”一词广泛用于语法的组织（一个组成部分称作语义部分），也用于句子分析（有语义表征式）和词项分析（有语义特征）。这种理论和其他理论用来区分意义特征的术语还有“语义标记/区别成分/特性”和（上述涵义无关的）“语义成分”。