Thanks to Carl and Kieren for explaining chord semantics.
A set of notes forming a chord may have a different "meaning" depending on
the current key context. Semantics seemed like a much grander idea to the
uninitiated.
However this idea would surely fall on stony ground in the context of
I have been intrigued by the highly technical correspondence on this topic.
However I have struggled to understand what is being discussed.
A bit of googling has shed some light
http://debussy.music.ubc.ca/muset/guido/section3.html for instance but other
sources are even more technical. I was part