Introduction

Approaches to semantics:

1. Materialist semantics: meaning as physical stimulus-response chain.
2. Mentalist semantics: meaning as thoughts, concepts, cognitive states.
3. Nominalist semantics: all words have physical meanings, if any.
4. Semiotic triangle: Word-Concept-Thing.
5. Semantic relations: relations between words (paradigmatic, syntagmatic).
6. Semantic fields: sets of words based on similarities (paradigmatic relations).
7. Semantic components, features: properties of words which define similarities.
8. Logical semantics: Predicate logic, propositional logic.
9. Prototype semantics: Typical core examples vs. fuzzy, borderline cases.