Conceptual onomasiology as blending in Ancient Greek. The sense of COMPLETION as generic space in the polysemic network of plēróō.

Abstract

This is a theoretical and methodological exploration into the phenomenon of diachronic polysemy from a conceptual onomasiological perspective, where the notion of 'bridging context' is reinterpreted as an integration process between two situations. The use of a term for expressing some aspect of a conceptually negotiated situational context is analysed as an ad hoc choice. In this light, the work operationally maps the notion of 'generic space' in conceptual blending with the diachronic emergence of featural configurations on a multiple correspondence analysis visualisation, enriched with the confidence ellipses around the centroids of the various senses for the polysemous term. These ellipses appear to partially overlap with two distinct senses, at the same time being immanent to the gestalts of both. The data come from the diachronic development of the verb pleroo in Ancient Greek, between the 6th and 3rd c. BCE, for 833 instances of the term, encountered for this period.