The meaning of MEANING

Suppose there are some people in a room fighting with each other physically. The abstract concept which describes this is 'VIOLENCE'. Now, the actual material violence lies at the hitting - the physical coming in contact, of one punch/stroke with another body. And violence is the abstract phenomenon which collectively subjectively emerges out of the whole set of punches, kicks, strokes etc.

So why don't we imitate this idea in trying to define meaning? Does 'T' have a semantics/meaning? No. Does 'TICKET' have one? Yes. What's in TICKET which T does not have which gives the former meaning and the to the latter not. It is the coming together of the various letters in the word, and the emergent idea out of the way the letters combine/gel/relate to each other. 

Similarly, a sentence gets meaning from the way words (most of which isolatedly don't have any "meaning" as such just by themselves, standing alone) combine with each other. The meaning of what is going on in the room mentioned above is 'violence'.

Meaning is the way in which a set of entities relate to each other on the basis of pre-conceived rules of these associations.