Posted: Feb 11, 2014 3:59 am
I'm not sure if anyone is still interested but I'll post some more here. I'm enjoying looking back over some semantics books and articles that I read a few years ago.
This next section is drawn from 'Linguistic Categorization' by John R. Taylor. (Oxford)
Especially pages 112-116.
Now, if you ask anyone who has studied a foreign language, prepositions are one of the most difficult parts of speech to come to grips with. Not only are they extremely polysemous, they seldom mirror meanings across languages. In German you go 'auf Uralub', and you live 'auf dem Lande' and you meet people 'auf einer Party' whereas in English you go ON holiday, Live IN the country and you meet people AT a party.
Prepositions are often relegated to the category of 'things that just have to be learned' in text books. However, cognitive linguists have 'taken up the challenge of the alleged arbitrariness of prepositional usage' (Taylor, 2005, p. 112.)
If we take two sentences with the preposition 'over', the meanings would seem to have little in common:
1)The plane flew over the city. Vs 2)He held his hands over his face
In 1) the orientation between the trajector (the plane) and locator (the city) is vertical, non contact and dynamic.
In 2) the orientation is horizontal, contact and static.
However, a semantic chain can be constructed in which each successive item retains some aspects of the previous meaning, while introducing new aspects, until we arrive far from where we started. For example:
a) The plane flew over the city
b) He walked over the street.
In this pair the meaning of 'from one side to the other' is common in both pairs, in describing the path of the trajector, but the relationship between trajector ( 'plane, man) and locator (city, street) has changed from non-contact to contact.
b) He walked over the street
c) He walked over the hill
Now the contact aspect of the relationship is maintained in both b) and c) but the nature of the path has been changed from a flat trajectory to a curved (up, reach an apex and then down) trajectory.
And so on, with each step maintaining something of the previous meaning, not attending to other aspects of the previous meaning and introducing new aspects of meaning which are foregrounded in subsequent steps of the semantic chain.
Here is the chain as represented in the text (ibid, pp.113-114)
a) The lamp hangs over the table.
b) The plane flew over the city
c) He walked over the street
d) He jumped over the wall
e) He turned over the page
g) He turned over the stone
h) He fell over the stone
i) He pushed her over the balcony
j) The water flowed over the rim of the bathtub
k) He lives over the hill
l) Come over here
m) Pull the lamp down over the table
n) He walked all over the city
o) The child threw his toys all over the floor
p) He laid the table cloth over the table
q) He put his hands over his face
Various meanings emerge during this chain. Path shape, goal orientation, overcoming obstacles, covering, hiding and so on, with each item retaining something of the previous until we get from a to q.
More on prepositions next time.
(Edit for typos)
This next section is drawn from 'Linguistic Categorization' by John R. Taylor. (Oxford)
Especially pages 112-116.
Now, if you ask anyone who has studied a foreign language, prepositions are one of the most difficult parts of speech to come to grips with. Not only are they extremely polysemous, they seldom mirror meanings across languages. In German you go 'auf Uralub', and you live 'auf dem Lande' and you meet people 'auf einer Party' whereas in English you go ON holiday, Live IN the country and you meet people AT a party.
Prepositions are often relegated to the category of 'things that just have to be learned' in text books. However, cognitive linguists have 'taken up the challenge of the alleged arbitrariness of prepositional usage' (Taylor, 2005, p. 112.)
If we take two sentences with the preposition 'over', the meanings would seem to have little in common:
1)The plane flew over the city. Vs 2)He held his hands over his face
In 1) the orientation between the trajector (the plane) and locator (the city) is vertical, non contact and dynamic.
In 2) the orientation is horizontal, contact and static.
However, a semantic chain can be constructed in which each successive item retains some aspects of the previous meaning, while introducing new aspects, until we arrive far from where we started. For example:
a) The plane flew over the city
b) He walked over the street.
In this pair the meaning of 'from one side to the other' is common in both pairs, in describing the path of the trajector, but the relationship between trajector ( 'plane, man) and locator (city, street) has changed from non-contact to contact.
b) He walked over the street
c) He walked over the hill
Now the contact aspect of the relationship is maintained in both b) and c) but the nature of the path has been changed from a flat trajectory to a curved (up, reach an apex and then down) trajectory.
And so on, with each step maintaining something of the previous meaning, not attending to other aspects of the previous meaning and introducing new aspects of meaning which are foregrounded in subsequent steps of the semantic chain.
Here is the chain as represented in the text (ibid, pp.113-114)
a) The lamp hangs over the table.
b) The plane flew over the city
c) He walked over the street
d) He jumped over the wall
e) He turned over the page
g) He turned over the stone
h) He fell over the stone
i) He pushed her over the balcony
j) The water flowed over the rim of the bathtub
k) He lives over the hill
l) Come over here
m) Pull the lamp down over the table
n) He walked all over the city
o) The child threw his toys all over the floor
p) He laid the table cloth over the table
q) He put his hands over his face
Various meanings emerge during this chain. Path shape, goal orientation, overcoming obstacles, covering, hiding and so on, with each item retaining something of the previous until we get from a to q.
More on prepositions next time.
(Edit for typos)