Metasemantics

{{Short description|Study of the foundations of natural language semantics}}

{{distinguish|Metasemantic poetry}}

In the philosophy of language and metaphysics, metasemantics is the study of the foundations of natural language semantics (the philosophical study of meaning).Alexis Burgess, Brett Sherman (eds.), Metasemantics: New Essays on the Foundations of Meaning, Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 29 n. 13.[https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/metasemantics-new-essays-on-the-foundations-of-meaning/ "Review of Metasemantics: New Essays on the Foundations of Meaning"]. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.Stainton, Robert J. [https://archive.org/details/philosophicalper0000stai Philosophical Perspectives on Language]. Peterborough, Ont., Broadview Press, 1996, p. 36. Metasemantics searches for "the proper understanding of compositionality, the object of truth-conditional analysis, metaphysics of reference, as well as, and most importantly, the scope of semantic theory itself"Kasia M. Jaszczolt, Meaning in Linguistic Interaction: Semantics, Metasemantics, Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press, 2016, p. viii. and asks "how it is that expressions become endowed with their semantic significance".Ori Simchen, Semantics, Metasemantics, Aboutness, Oxford University Press, 2017, p. xiii.