Acognitive Study On The Semantics Of Spatial Prepositions And Itsapplication In Dictionary Making

Spatial prepositions are notoriously polysemous. However, in thedictionary-making practice, the task of sense arrangement and definition of spatialprepositions is often done intuitively and subjectively, and this leads to problems likemessy arrangements for senses and examples, blurry definitions, and neglect ofinterrelations between senses. This thesis aims to explore a cognitive approachtowards the optimization of spatial preposition entries in learner’s dictionaries bybuilding up a dictionary entry of preposition to.Our study mainly consists of two parts:1) a cognitive analysis of the semanitcsof preposition to; and2) the compilation of preposition to entry based on ourcognitive analyses.Based on the assumption that the spatial senses of a spatial prepositionconstitutes the framework of all its senses and its abstract senses stem from thecorresponding spatial senses, we first sorted out and classified the spatial senses ofpreposition to. With image-schemas employed as our tools of analysis, we then madean effort to figure out the metaphoric relations between the abstract senses and spatialsenses of preposition to. The analyses above provided basis for sense arrangement anddefinition of preposition to. In the second part, we applied the cognitive analyses tothe entry-making practice, and proposed a “four-tier” model for the treatment ofspatial prepositions in learner’s dictionaries. Finally, a dictionary entry of prepositionto was built up to test the feasibility of our proposed model.