This paper deals with the names for both living and dead bodies, more particularly OE lic and lichama, OE bodig and finally ME corpse. The main focus will be on the contrast between semantic dynamics and boundedness, together with what we refer to as semantic redeployment. Body proves to be a very dynamic lexeme. In addition, it also contributed to the system of grammaticalized quantifier pronouns. This is in sharp contrast with the boundedness of lic and lichama, which gradually got lost in the course of ME. Initially, the loan lexeme corpse seemed to follow the semantic paradigm of body. However, in present-day English it has only preserved its prototypical meaning of dead body. Interestingly, my data suggest that words related to ‘death’ do not tend to give rise to any metonymical or metaphorical developments. The eventual result of these lexico-semantic changes is a far-reaching redeployment in Modern English in terms of a binary contrast between two lexical items: polysemous body, with a vast array of mostly metaphorical meanings, and monosemous corpse.
In Modern English the gerund, historically a nominalized verb in –ung(e), is marked by a gradient of increasing verbalization, from full noun (the reading of the book) to nearly full verbalization (... John having read his essay very carefully), which is due to morphological syncretism in Early Middle English with the present participle in –ind(e). It is demonstrated that this (re)verbalization can be traced diachronically from its incipient phase to Modern English. It also allows us to fine-tune our terminology as to the most recent stage in terms of verbalized or verbal gerund, which at first sight seems to be a contradictio in terminis. In light of the data it is argued that –ing forms after verbs of perception (We saw him working in the garden) can also be interpreted as (semi-)gerunds, featuring at the extreme right of the gradient; ‘‘semi-”, because such structures lack one nominal property, viz. the genitival subject (...*his working in the garden). The historical history and development of the gerund in English can be described as a triadic process: VERB – NOUN – VERB.
The study highlights the transition of the temporal adverbs always/algates, expressing continuity in time, and ago, expressing remoteness in time, from their historical prototypical concept of space to that of time and beyond. In these processes both metonymy and metaphor play an important role. The data regarding always and algates suggest a gradual cline from SPACE to TIME and an array of other meanings, subsumed under the cover-term UNCONSTRAINEDNESS. The SPACE-TIME-X chain (with X standing for other more abstract meanings) seems to occur in most languages. The semantic development of these adverbs also features all the properties associated with a change like this: metonymy followed by ever increasing or proliferating metaphorization, fuzzy or non-discrete categories (mostly in the stages of transition). Ago owes its origin to the grammaticalization of the past participle of a verb of movement. This spatial concept is metaphorically mapped on to a new temporal prototype. As compared with always/algates, the temporal frame of ago is monosemous and marked throughout by metaphorization from ‘remoteness in space’ to ‘remoteness in time’.
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