What is it?

[greek]

In its broadest sense, semantics is the study of meaning, and linguistic semantics is the study of meaning as expressed by the words phrases and sentences of human language. A narrowing of the term is commonly made in separating the study of semantics from that of pragmatics. Unfortunately, the nature of the object of enquiry of the discipline (what constitutes semantic meaning, as opposed to pragmatic meaning) and the domain of the enquiry (what aspects of meaning should be addressed by the discipline) remain difficult and controversial.