English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
David Lee
D4 Prepositions and space
Section D Extension
David Lee (2001) reprinted from Chapter 2 of Cognitive Linguistics, South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, pp. 137-145.
This is another chapter taken from David Lee’s excellent book. This time the focus is on the use of prepositions to talk about the very basic concept of space.
Again, Lee is emphasising the personal element in language use, that what we say depends on how we view the world, and what we want to say about it — not on some grammatical absolute. We have choices, and can use language to make meaningful distinctions in areas of usage which teaching materials often simplify and portray as dependent upon automatic formal rules. Tense (see B5) and article usage (see C2) are often misleadingly explained in this way.
Gap-filling exercises are often part of this pedagogically inappropriate process. Students are presented with an incomplete sentence in which they are told there is only one possible answer. Yet in many cases (whether with articles, tenses or prepositions) there are alternatives which depend on the meaning the speaker wishes to convey. You can be in a bus’ or ’on a bus’ depending on how the situation is construed. Lee’s paper convincingly demonstrates how the use of prepositions is not always determined by collocation with a particular noun.
Some specific terminology is used, such as ’trajectory’ and ’landmark’, but this is explained in the text.
2.1 Introduction
One of our earliest and most basic cognitive achievements as infants is to acquire an understanding of objects and of the way in which they relate to each other in physical space. The kind of concepts represented by words such as up, down, in, out, on, off, and so on are the building blocks on which we construct our mental models of the physical world. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget ([1936] 1952) recognised the fundamental importance of these concepts when he characterised the first stage of cognitive development as ’sensorimotor knowledge’. In other words, infants come to understand the world through grasping things, picking them up, dropping them, pulling them - and generally watching what happens when objects are manipulated by themselves and by others. Infants spend hours placing objects on top of each other or inside one another, so that these relationships are well established conceptually before the corresponding words are used.
It is no doubt because spatial relationships are so fundamental that we use space as a domain for structuring other less concrete aspects of our experience. For example, when we say that someone occupies a ’high’ position in society, we are using the up-down axis as a means of talking about social status. If someone says that they are ’in trouble’, they are treating ’trouble’ as a container and themselves
as a contained object. If I say that I have a ’close’ relationship with someone, I am constructing the notion of intimacy in terms of physical proximity. The next chapter is devoted to a detailed discussion of this kind of application of spatial concepts to more abstract domains. Before this discussion is undertaken, we need to consider the ways in which we talk about space itself, since even in this very basic area, the relationship between language and reality is surprisingly complex. To illustrate this claim, three basic locative prepositions - in, on, and at - will be considered.
2.2 Example: in
The basic function of in is to refer to a situation where one object (the ’trajector’) is contained within another (the ’landmark’). However, even if we focus only on those uses of in that are concerned with relations between objects in physical space (as opposed to examples such as in trouble), we find that in is used in a whole range of situations where there is only an approximation to this ideal meaning. Consider the following examples (Herskovits 1986).
1. the cat in the house
2. the bird in the garden
3. the flowers in the vase
4. the bird in the tree
5. the chair in the corner
6. the water in the vase
7. the crack in the vase
8. the foot in the stirrup
9. the finger in the ring
Example 1 is a prototypical use of in, referring to a situation in which the trajector (tr) is wholly contained within the landmark (lm). Example 2 is similar, except that a garden is a less prototypical example of a container than a house, since it has no clearly defined upper boundary. Nevertheless, there is some notional boundary, since a sparrow can be ’in’ a garden if it is flying around at a relatively low height, but we would not say that a hawk hovering at 200 metres above the garden was ’in’ it. Already in this example, then, we see another example of the notion of ’construal’. Objectively speaking, a garden is not a well-defined threedimensional container, but in our everyday use of a word such as in, it is construed as one.
Examples 3, 4, and 5 show that there is a good deal of flexibility in the way we apply the notion of containment to the real world. In 3 the fact that the flowers are not inside the vase does not prevent us from using in to refer to this situation (figure 2.1).
Figure 2.1 The flowers in the vase
In 4, in order to conceptualise a tree as a container, we have to construe it as a three-dimensional object, the boundaries of which are defined by the ends of the branches. In 5 the question of whether a chair is ’in’ a corner is a particularly ill-defined issue, given the indeterminate nature of ’a corner’. The question can also be affected by the presence of other objects in the scene - we are much more likely to identify the chair in the diagram on the left of figure 2.2 as being in the corner than we are in the diagram on the right, even though it is in exactly the same position in both (Herskovits 1986: 47).
Figure 2.2 The chair in the corner
Examples 6 and 7 illustrate a rather different point - namely, the fact that the concept of ’containment’ itself manifests a certain degree of flexibility. Example 6 constitutes a prototypical example of the concept, where a three-dimensional entity (the water) is entirely contained within the confines of a three-dimensional container, which surrounds it on all sides. But in 7 we interpret the notion of containment differently. Here, tr (the crack) is embedded in the surface of lm rather than in some hollow space inside it. In other words, there is some variation in the way lm is construed - as a volume in one case and an area in another. Similar examples of this latter use of in are found in such examples as the weeds in the lawn, the wrinkles in his skin.
Examples 8 and 9 are different again. The spatial configuration is similar in both cases (figures 2.3 and 2.4), yet there is a difference in how we identify the relationship between the two entities.
Figure 2.3 The foot in the stirrup
Figure 2.4 The ring on the finger
In 8 we see the relationship as one of containment (even though only a small part of the foot is contained within the stirrup). In 9, it would be odd to conceptualise the situation in terms of the finger being ’in’ the ring. The reasons for this have to do with a pragmatic asymmetry between tr and lm in each case. Since the function of a stirrup is to hold the foot in a particular position, it is naturally construed as lm, with the foot as tr. A ring does not have this function. The relationship here is the converse, with the finger functioning as a fixed entity (lm), with respect to which the ring is placed as tr. These examples show that, in order to explain the forms that we use to code these situations in language, we need to go beyond the level of surface topographical relationships. Background knowledge involving the relevant functional relationships is crucial to an understanding of the forms of coding, which reflect subtle aspects of everyday human experience.
The same point can be made about the following pair (Herskovits 1986).
10. the bulb in the socket
11. *the jar in the lid
The topographical relationships are similar in each case (figures 2.5 and 2.6), but only in 10 is the relationship construed in terms of containment, since only in this case is the uppermost entity naturally construed as a fixed reference point. Again, our background knowledge concerning the functional relationships involved is crucial to an understanding of the relevant linguistic patterns.
Figure 2.5 The bulb in the socket
Figure 2.6 The lid on the jar (*The jar in the lid)
2.3 Example: on
Similar points can be made about examples containing on. If native speakers are asked to give an example of a sentence containing the word on, they tend to give one such as 12, in which two entities are in physical contact with each other, with one positioned above the other and supported by it.
12. the pen on the desk
However, consider the following examples.
13. the writing on the paper
14. the poster on the wall
15. the wrinkles on the face
16. the fly on the ceiling
The situation described in 13 is different from that in 12. Since writing is not a physical object, the relationship between tr and lm in 13 is not one of physical support. From the point of view of a human conceptualiser, however, it seems entirely natural to see this situation as analogous to 12. Since the writing is applied to the paper in a manner that bears some similarity to the way in which a pen is placed on a desk, the objective differences between the two situations can be ignored for coding purposes.
Example 14 is judged by most speakers to be a slightly unusual use of on, because the wall is behind the poster rather than beneath it. (Other languages typically do not use the word corresponding to on in this case; French, for example, uses a, meaning ’at’ in English, rather than sur, ’on’ in English, in this case.) This example is perhaps closer conceptually to 13 than to 12 in that the wall, like the paper, forms a background, with the writing and the poster as foregrounded or displayed entities. Something similar can be said of 15, where the face is construed as a background against which the wrinkles are displayed, as opposed to the wrinkles in his face, which suggests that the wrinkles are etched more deeply into the skin and thus foregrounds the notion of embedding.
Example (16) is unusual in that the topological relationship between the ceiling and the fly is precisely the opposite of that which holds in the normal situation coded by on. As we move from the prototypical situation to cases such as 13, the notion of display seems to assume as prominent a role in the situation as that of support, and it is perhaps this factor that motivates the incorporation of 16 into the ’on’ category (though the fact that the ceiling functions as a resting place for the fly is clearly also relevant). What this shows is that members of the same category may differ from each other quite markedly with respect to the characteristics that qualify them for their membership. This poses a critical problem for the traditional (Aristotelian) theory of category membership, according to which there is a necessary feature or features that all members of a category share (see Lakoff (1987: 161) for discussion). In chapter 3 it is noted that members of a particular category may in fact express meanings that are diametrically opposed to each other, since they connect to central (or ’prototypical’) members by virtue of quite different features.
2.4 Example: at
The preposition at provides a particularly clear example of the flexibility and abstraction involved in the coding of spatial relationships. Herskovits (1986: 128-40) argues that the function of at is to locate two entities at precisely the same point in space and construe them as geometric points. This provides an elegant account of various characteristics of the use of at, but it clearly involves a considerable degree of abstraction and idealisation.
Consider 17 as a case in point.
17. John is at the supermarket.
This sentence would be an entirely natural utterance if I were at home telling someone where John was at that moment. However, I would be much less likely to say this if I were actually in the supermarket (or even just outside it), reporting the same situation. If I am close to or in the supermarket, it is difficult for me to conceptualise it as a geometric point in space. Given its size and salient materiality, it is much more natural to think of it in these circumstances as a container, as in 18.
18. John is in the supermarket.
As one moves away from the supermarket, however, it becomes progressively easier to conceive of it as a point. This may well have something to do with the fact that, as we move away from objects in our visual field, their image on the retina grows smaller, so that at a given distance they begin to approximate to a point.
A second piece of evidence supporting Herskovits’s characterisation of the meaning of at is the fact that if I arrange with someone to meet me ’at the library’, this can cause difficulties when the time of meeting actually comes, since it does not specify whether the meeting is to take place inside or outside the building. This distinction is lost when the building is construed as a point.
A third piece of evidence has to do with the situations in which it would be natural to use 19 rather than 20.
19. The cafe is at the highway.
20. The cafe is on the highway.
At first sight 19 appears to constitute a counterexample to the claim that at involves the construal of the two elements involved in the relationship as geometric points, since this seems incompatible with the fact that a highway is a long, straight object, more naturally conceptualised as a line in geometric terms. In fact, the typical context of use for 19 is when I am moving along a path (for example, driving a car) and I say that the cafe is located at the place where my path intersects with the highway at some point ahead - a location that is quite naturally conceptualised as a point. Similarly, there is an implicit notion of path in each of the following.
21. The bomb exploded at 1000 feet.
22. We’ll hold a lifeboat drill at the Equator.
23. The horse fell at the water jump.
In 21 the point at which the bomb exploded is the point at which its trajectory (path) intersects with the 1000 feet altitude level; in 22 the lifeboat drill will be held at the point where the ship’s path intersects with the line of the Equator; and in 23 the conceptualiser tracks the progress of the horse to the water jump, where it falls.
The concept of path is also present in the following examples, but in a more abstract form.
24. The bird has a white band at its neck.
25. The bird is at the top of the tree.
26. There are bubbles at the surface.
Whereas in 19-23 an actual physical movement is involved (that is, cars, ships, bombs, and horses follow paths through physical space), in 24-26 there is no such physical trajectory. Nevertheless, the cognitive claim is that there is movement in the following sense. What 24 implies is that the conceptualiser scans the body of the bird and comes across a white band when this scanning process reaches the neck; similarly, in 25 the scanning process moves across the tree, finding a bird when it reaches the top; and in 26 there is implicit movement through the liquid, encountering bubbles when it reaches the surface.
Further evidence for the notion that at involves some abstract notion of path in examples such as these is that the only circumstance in which a sentence such as John is at London is natural is if London is one of a series of points on a journey. Otherwise, it is more natural to conceive of London as a container than as a point.
Questions, suggestions and issues to consider
1. As with the paper in D2, we can ask to what extent the use of prepositions is a matter of creativity in each instance (as Lee suggests) or convention. Do we say we are ’in trouble’ because we construe ’trouble’ as a container, or because this is what we have heard other people say? What about being ’in need’? Is it not also plausible to suggest that these collocations exist because one of the ’meanings’ of in is to suggest that something affects us (’trouble’, ’need’ or ’love’)?
2. It could be argued that Lee’s approach only works for the most basic prepositions, and only for their spatial and temporal meanings (and then maybe not all of those). Can you see how the idea of containment could be extended to the use of in in I’ll be there in a week?
3. Look at Activity A4.5 in A4, concerning the preposition for. Can you think of a core meaning (in the same way that in refers to containment), and then ways in which the other meanings could be explained as different construals of this core?
4. The adjective different is usually followed by from in British English, but sometimes it can be followed by to (also than in American English) as in these two sentences:
She’s very different from her mother.
She’s very different to her mother.
Is there any difference in meaning between them? Are people construing the relationship between daughter and mother differently? Or might there be another reason for using to? (Hint: think of a similar word that might ’influence’ different.)
5. Take another preposition which indicates a spatial relationship, e.g. up, down, and try to do the same as Lee: to find a core meaning which could explain some of its apparently idiomatic uses (e.g. to walk up/down the road).