This volume introduces all central aspects and areas of semantics. It first explains key concepts of lexical and compositional semantics such as reference, predication, meaning, and proposition, without prioritizing any specific theoretical approach. The focus of the introduction is primarily on a descriptive account of the semantics of the parts of speech in German (verbs, nouns, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, particles), complex word groups, and sentence types. The presentation of the phenomena aims to largely avoid formal tools, making it compatible with various theoretical approaches and maximally accessible for students with little or no prior knowledge. Building on the descriptive account, a second part will...