Broadening is a linguistic phenomenon where the meaning of a word expands to include more referents than it originally did. This process allows a term to apply to a wider range of concepts or instances, often resulting from social or cultural changes that influence how language is used. Broadening connects closely with semantic relations, as it affects how words relate to one another in meaning, and plays a significant role in lexical semantics by influencing the meanings of individual words over time. Additionally, it interacts with sound change and semantic change as language evolves.
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