Factions within the mathic world, in the years following the Reconstitution, generally claiming descent from Halikaarn. So named because they believed that symbols could bear actual semantic content. The idea is traceable to Protas and to Hylaea before him. (From the Glossary)
The first at the Concent of Saunt Muncoster in 121 A.R. when the avout split into two Faculties, the Semantic Faculty and the Syntactic Faculty.
Semantic and syntactic may correlate with Earth semiotics subdivisions.