An Analysis Of The Semantic Network Of IN As A Preposition: A Cognitive Perspective

The thesis closely looks into the semantic network of the spatial preposition IN fromthe cognitive linguistic perspective. It is widely believed that our original knowledgeabout the physical world derives from the spatial orientation around our surroundings,and spatial prepositions are of great value to show out spatial relations in the languages.Later on, based on such knowledge on space, we apply the words as well as the sensesoriginally describing spatial relation to know the world by virtue of the cognitive modelssuch as metonymy as well as metaphors.This study is mainly focused on what the relations are between the various distinctsenses in the semantic network of the preposition IN and what working principle ofmeaning extension is as well as how it works. First according to Langacker’s linguisticcriteria on determining the prototypical sense and by referring to several authoritativedictionaries such as Oxford English Dictionary (Second Edition)(1989), Collins CobuildEnglish Dictionary (2000), this thesis proves that the locative sense of Being Within ABounded Space is the prototypical sense of the preposition IN; Besides, In’s prototypicalimage schema are carefully provided at the same time.The spatial preposition IN will be analyzed and explained with three importantparameters: trajector, landmark and path in this thesis. The primary spatial sense of thepreposition IN will be extended to other non-spatial domains mainly by virtue thetransformations of the image schema and metaphorical mappings of image-schematicstructure from the spatial domains into the non-spatial domains. Thus the distinct sensesmake up a radial semantic network, in which the primary spatial sense serves as thenuclear and the different distinct senses are interrelated to each other through the familyresemblances.By the quantitative and qualitative analysis, this study well demonstrates that duringthe process of semantic extensions of the preposition IN from the central sense in thespace domain to the relatively marginal ones in the non-space target domains, there is asystematic correspondence between the extended senses and the image schematicconcepts of the preposition IN, which implies that image-schematic structures play acritical role in motivating, constraining, and expounding the phenomenon ofprepositional semantic extensions. Metaphors can not be purely regarded as a figure of Language but also a way of thinking in nature; metaphor plays an important part inthe process of linguistic construction. In this study, the offered results may be helpful inforeign language teaching and lexicography.The whole thesis is made up of three important parts: introduction, main body whichis made up of three chapters and conclusion.Chapter one is literature review which can be divided into three parts. In the firstpart, definition of the English preposition and its importance is shown. In the second part,we review existing studies on the prepositional polysemy. Traditional approach adoptsthe geometric relation in the study. Leech, Miller and Johnson-Laird, Herskovits allprovide geometric definitions of the spatial preposition in. The traditional approach hasbrought in a new and useful way to see into the spatial propositions in a certain time;however, it seems to be kind of idealistic and simplistic. Among the existing cognitiveresearches on spatial prepositions, Lakoff proposed the Full Specification approach tostudy the polysemy network for over. Rice, Sally (1996) conducts a research to study thethree prepositions in, at and on, and comes to a conclusion that spatial senses are theprototypes of the prepositions. Kreitzer’s approach is usually termed Partial Specification.Taylor concerns about many different aspects of TR-LM relationship. In the case study ofover, he puts forward many distinct characteristics of senses. In the third part, we discusstwo very important assumptions in cognitive linguistics: TR/LM Principle and thephilosophy of cognitive linguistics-experientialism.Chapter two is about the research methodology and it can be divided into four parts.In the first part, we come to a brief introduction of research questions in the study. In thesecond part, the corpus and concordancing program for use are discussed. Corpora dataand lexicographical data are obtained and analyzed from one popular English novel andthree authentic dictionaries. In the third part, we come to the working principles and fourprocedures of data collection and classification. At last, in’s different senses aresummarized.Chapter three is an analysis of the semantic structure of the preposition IN, made upof five parts. The first part provides a theoretical background, briefly discussing abouttheoretical notions: image schema, conceptual metaphors and radial categories. Metaphormetonymy and mage-schema transformations can motivate polysemy networks. In the second part, we offer a careful analysis of the prototypical sense of the preposition IN.On the basis of the criteria proposed by Tyler and Evans on determining the primarysense within the semantic network, the prototypical sense of IN is determined to be“Being within A Bounded Space”. In the third part, we begin to illustrate the prototypicalimage schema of the preposition IN. In’s prototypical sense of being within a BoundedSpace possesses two forms: the complete enclosure and the partial enclosure for humanhas the proclivity of “gestalt completion”. The fourth part is about the primary spatialsense of the preposition IN in three spaces. The preposition IN’s spatial concept indicatesthings within a certain space: within a line (a one-dimensional space), within an area (atwo-dimensional space), or within the volume (a three-dimensional space).From theperspective of the prominence view, the preposition IN’s spatial sense can be divided intotwo types in terms of the relation between a trajector and the landmark: dynamicinclusion and static inclusion. The fifth part is to discover how the primary spatial senseof the preposition IN is mentally extended to abstract domains reflecting in corpus.According to the distance from the prototypical sense to extended senses, in this study wecan classify three dimensions of semantic extensions of IN. The basic dimension ofsemantic extension is made up of such five domains: DIRECTIONS, BODY PARTS,ENVIRONMENT, MATERIAL, and FIELD. The high dimension of semantic extensionis those adverbial, prepositional, and conjunctional phrases with the preposition IN. Themid-dimension of semantic extension is the largest part, made up of ten domains: STATE,TIME, MANNER, EVENT, PURPOSE, GROUP, CONSEQUENCE, SOCIALRELATIONSHIP, QUANTITY, and QUANTITY.The last part is a conclusion of this thesis. It is a summary of the results in the studyand implications on teaching and lexicography. The prototypical spatial sense of thepreposition IN possesses a strong power to make itself extended into a larger number ofnon-spatial abstract domains. The metaphorically extended senses of the preposition INown an uneven distribution in the source domains and target domains. The distinct sensesof the polysemic words are related to each other mainly through family resemblance. Theresults might well provide some important implications for lexicography and foreignlanguage teaching.