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Description
This article explores the diachronic semantic evolution of mental health vocabulary, focusing specifically on the concept of hysteria across Spanish and German specialised corpora. Drawing on Diachronic Prototype Semantics, the paper examines how semantic changes reflect shifts in radial, hierarchical networks where meanings are updated according to communicative needs. The key methodological aspect is the use of the Gemini large language model to assist in the qualitative analysis of the MentEs and DeMens corpora contexts. This AI-supported approach enables the large-scale categorisation of contexts into six thematic areas: aetiology, clinical manifestations, differential diagnosis, treatment, conceptual debate, and non-clinical uses. The findings indicate that historical scientific discourse was overwhelmingly preoccupied with conceptual delimitation and identification of hysteria (representing 86–94% of occurrences) rather than therapeutic measures. Beyond the lexical and semantic analysis of hysteria, the validity of the methodology is presented as the primary finding. The author concludes that AI-assisted processing facilitates a comprehensive bridge between quantitative data and qualitative interpretation, allowing researchers to document prototypical modulation, for instance, how specific meanings gain or lose prominence depending on the historical and social context.