Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introductory chapter -- Figuration and language history: Universality and variation -- Diachronic metaphor research -- Four guidelines for diachronic metaphor research -- Conceptual variation and change -- Lost in transmission? The sense development of borrowed metaphor -- Loss of prototypical meaning and lexical borrowing: A case of semantic redeployment -- A complex adaptive systems approach to language, cultural schemas and serial metonymy: Charting the cognitive innovations of 'fingers' and 'claws' in Basque -- The interface between synchronic and diachronic conceptual metaphor: The role of embodiment, culture and semantic field -- Figuration and grammaticalization -- The pivotal role of metaphor in the evolution of human language -- Two counter-expectation markers in Chinese -- The emergence of diathesis markers from MOTION concepts -- Figurative language in culture variation -- 'Better shamed before one than shamed before all': Shaping shame in Old English and Old Norse texts -- The conceptual profile of the lexeme home: A multifactorial diachronic analysis -- Cognitive patterns in Greek poetic metaphors of emotion: A diachronic approach -- 'Thou com'st in such a questionable shape': Embodying the cultural model for ghost across the history of English -- Index