From Populus Romanus to Populus Christianus: The Concept of "People" in Thomas Aquinas through the Lens of Distributional Semantics

The subject of the study is the structural transformation of the semantic field of lexemes denoting forms of human community (populus, plebs, gens, natio, vulgus, multitudo) in the works of Thomas Aquinas compared to the linguistic norm of Classical Latin. The transformation of the concept of populus in scholastic thought is documented in a number of special studies (I. Congar, P. Bolloni, A. V. Marey); however, the traditional historical-conceptual analysis based on the hermeneutics of individual textual passages faces the problem of representativeness. Conclusions drawn from a limited set of quotes carry the risk of subjective interpretation and do not allow for an assessment of the systemic nature of the identified changes. The aim of the research is to empirically verify and quantitatively measure these changes through the application of computational linguistics tools. The choice of Thomas Aquinas is determined by his central position in the scholastic tradition and the presence of detailed qualitative hypotheses subject to testing. The study is based on methods of distributive semantics. The analysis is conducted on two aligned word embedding models: Opera Latina (Classical Latin) and Opera Maiora (the works of Thomas Aquinas). The methodology includes calculating cosine similarity to measure semantic drift, visualizing the topology of semantic fields (PCA, heat maps), and comparative analysis of nearest semantic neighbors. The main findings of the study are as follows. The quantitative analysis has recorded a fundamental reconfiguration of the socio-political vocabulary in the language of Thomas Aquinas: negative or near-zero values of cosine similarity for key lexemes indicate a radical change in the contexts of their usage. It has been established that the concept of populus undergoes a triple transformation: sacralization, hierarchy, and de-subjectivation. The center of the new conceptual system becomes ecclesia, which conceptually encompasses the functions of the previous political categories. A greater stability of the vocabulary of vertical power compared to that of civil participation has been identified. The results obtained confirm and clarify the conclusions of previous studies conducted using traditional methods. The scientific novelty of the work lies in demonstrating the possibility of moving from qualitative interpretations of individual passages to statistically substantiated conclusions about the structure of semantic fields. The approach is applicable for verifying hypotheses of intellectual history based on the works of other authors and eras.