Logical positivism asserts that structural semantics is the study of relationships between the meanings of terms within a sentence, and how meaning can be composed from smaller elements. However, some critical theorists suggest that meaning is only divided into smaller structural units via its regulation in concrete social interactions; outside of these interactions language may become meaningless.

See also

• Prototype Semantics
• Cognitive Semantics
  Cognitive semantics
  Cognitive semantics is part of the cognitive linguistics movement. The main tenets of cognitive semantics are, first, that grammar is conceptualisation; second, that conceptual structure is embodied and motivated by usage; and third, that the ability to use language draws upon general cognitive...
  
  
• Cognitive Linguistics
  Cognitive linguistics
  In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
  
  
• Principle of compositionality
  Principle of compositionality
  In mathematics, semantics, and philosophy of language, 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. This principle is also called Frege's Principle,...
  
  
• Ferdinand de Saussure
  Ferdinand de Saussure
  Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...