Volatile concepts

Abstract This paper demonstrates the value of studying co-occurrence ‘quads’ – constellations four non-adjacent lemmas that consistently co-occur across spans up to 100 tokens for understanding discursive change. We map meaning onto quads as ‘discursive concepts’, which encompass encyclopaedic semantics, pragmatics, and context. investigate a high-frequency quad with high strength in EEBO-TCP: world-heaven-earth-power . conduct semantic pragmatic analysis generate hypotheses regarding The quad’s components are semantically underspecified; thus, although indicates concept, each instantiation is variable, contingent, dependent upon context processes interpretation. observe how vague lexemes constitute building blocks religious discourse employed new, timely secular discourses; we argue underspecification site source Indeed, volatile, unstable nature component lexical meanings renders them indispensable early modern debate.