Abstract

Formal semantics is understood either as a formal analysis of semantical features of natural language or as model‐theoretic semantics of formal languages. This paper focuses on the second understanding. The problem is how to identify the formal aspects of formal semantics, if we understand ‘formal’as ‘independent of content’. This is done by showing that the form of semantical interpretation of a language L is given by its syntax and the parallelism of the signature of L and its interpretative structure SI. However, the content of interpretation, that is, the way of correlating of L‐expressions with extralinguistic items depends of informal factors. The discussion shows that semantics is prior to syntax.