A corpus based analysis of the verb pleroo in Ancient Greek. The diachronic relevance of the container image schema in its evolution

Abstract

This is a corpus-based study of the development of the verb pleroo in Ancient Greek, originally meaning fill, from the 6th c. BCE in Classical Greek, up to the end of the 3rd c. BCE in Hellenistic Koine. It implements a hierarchical cluster analysis and a multiple correspondence analysis of the sum of the attested instances of pleroo of that period, divided by century. It explores the gains following a syncretism between two methodological strands: earlier introspective analyses postulating variant construals over intuitively grasped schematic configurations such as image schemas, and strictly inductive methods based on statistical analyses of correlations between co-occurring formal and semantic features. Thus, it examines the relevance of the container image-schema to the architecture of the schematic construction corresponding to the prototypical and historically preceding sense of pleroo, fill. Consequently, it observes how shifts in the featural configurations detected through statistical analysis, leading to the emergence of new senses, correspond to successive shifts on the perspectival salience of elements in the schematic construction of the verb.