【正确答案】正确答案：Semantic change plays a very important role in widening the vocabulary of a language. Since language is symbolic, each word serves as a symbol in relation to a specific meaning. In this sense, we need infinite numbers of words or symbols to code the physical entities and our experiential concepts. But this is impossible for communication. Therefore, users give a new concept to an old form, thus the meaning of a form is multiplied. There are three kinds of semantic changes, namely, broadening, narrowing, and meaning shift. Class shift and folk etymology also contribute to change in meaning. Semantic broadening refers to the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier denotation. For example, the word holiday used to mean "holy day" in religious English. It means "a day for rest" today regardless of its religious nature, and hence its meaning is widened. Semantic narrowing is a process in which the meaning of a word becomes less general or inclusive than its historically earlier meaning. For example, the Old English word "hund" ("hound") was once used for any breed of dog; whereas in Modem English its meaning has been narrowed to a particular kind of dog. Semantic shift is a process of semantic change in which a word loses its former meaning and acquires a new, sometimes related, meaning. For example, the word "silly" meant "happy" in Old English, and "naive" in Middle English, but "foolish" in Modem English.