This course introduces students to the basic problems in the study of meaning, in all areas of language (vocabulary, grammar, discourse). Students learn how to use the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach; formulate and test hypotheses about what a word, an expression or a construction means; how to state this meaning in a clear, precise and illuminating way; and how to compare meanings across languages and cultures. They will also learn some of the basic ideas and techniques of Formal Semantics, for analyzing meaning-based properties and relations of words and utterance, such as entailment and contradiction, and how NSM and Formal Semantics relate to other approaches to the study of meaning, such as componential analysis.