In the
philosophy of language
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...
and
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
, metasemantics is the study of the foundations of
natural language
In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...
semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy
Philosophy (f ...
(the
philosophical
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
study of
meaning). Metasemantics searches for "the proper understanding of
compositionality
In semantics, mathematical logic and related disciplines, the principle of compositionality is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them. ...
, the object of
truth-conditional Truth-conditional semantics is an approach to semantics of natural language that sees meaning (or at least the meaning of assertions) as being the same as, or reducible to, their truth conditions. This approach to semantics is principally associate ...
analysis,
metaphysics of reference
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the ...
, as well as, and most importantly, the scope of semantic theory itself" and asks "how it is that
expressions become endowed with their
semantic significance".
[Ori Simchen, ''Semantics, Metasemantics, Aboutness'', Oxford University Press, 2017, p. xiii.]
See also
*
Metasyntax
In logic and computer science, a metasyntax describes the allowable structure and composition of phrases and sentences of a metalanguage, which is used to describe either a natural language or a computer programming language.Sellink, Alex, and Chr ...
*
Metapragmatics In linguistics, metapragmatics is the study of how the effects and conditions of language use themselves become objects of discourse. The term is commonly associated with the semiotically-informed linguistic anthropology of Michael Silverstein.
Ov ...
References
Semantics
Meaning (philosophy of language)
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