Metasemantics
Metasemantics is a part of the philosophy of language that asks where the meaning of natural language comes from. It goes beyond simply studying meanings or how to analyze them, and looks at the foundations of semantic theory itself. Key questions include how the meanings of larger expressions arise from the meanings of their parts (compositionality), what makes statements true or false (truth-conditions), how words and phrases refer to things in the world, and what the overall scope of semantic theory should be. Different theories explore whether meanings come from minds, social practices, or the relationship between language and the world.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:20 (CET).