| Polysemy is a common phenomenon in languages, which can be found commonly in English prepositions. English prepositions have been firstly studied from traditional, structural, functional and generative, focusing on the function and usage of prepositions. However, cognitive linguists have opened up a new perspective exploring English polysemous prepositions. They prove that polysemy is not arbitrary but motivational. Although many scholars have studied prepositions, few of them construct the semantic derivative mechanism for prepositions, in which the derivative processes of each preposition are constructed and cultural factors are considered in it. Therefore, based on previous studies, the author applies Image Schema Theory and Metaphor Theory to explore English core prepositions systematically, focusing on the construction and interpretation of semantic extension mechanism of English core prepositions. Under the influence of general mechanism, the paper investigates image schemata of three core prepositions from prototypical to non-prototypical senses in the space domain, and illustrates their senses expressed by image schemata. The author also analyzes and expounds the process of semantic extension in different abstract domains. Finally, the whole picture of semantic extension in English prepositions is displayed.The famous linguist Wang Yin, in his treatise Semantic Theory and Language Teaching, has proposed that AT-ON-IN forms the Trinity relation; AT-ON-IN refers to the “Point-Side-Body” relation in space. When they are mapped into temporal concepts, abstract concepts, they roughly follow the rule. Therefore, the main goals for research are point-side-body prepositions, and they are AT, ON and IN. Firstly, this paper employs cognitive theory to construct the metaphorical extension mechanism of English core prepositions. Secondly, the author selects the corpus concerning prepositions AT, ON, IN from the authoritative dictionaries. The author classifies the variant senses of prepositions in the space domain and those senses extended into the target domains. Based on the Principled Polysemy Model of Tyler and Evans, the author locates the prototypical meanings of point-side-body prepositions AT, ON, IN. Their prototypical meanings can be extended in the space domain by Image Schema Transformation. At last, based on general model of metaphorical mechanism of English core prepositions, this paper focuses on the analysis of senses and the changes of prototypical meanings in the space domain and non-space domain, and how senses can be extended from the space domain to the non-space domains, which form the semantic networks of the different senses of Point-Side-Body. Through the explanation and description of the mapping processes on the spatial concepts of point-side-body prepositions AT, ON, IN, the author finds the intrinsic links between the original spatial concept and extensional senses. The paper verifies the applicability of the model and the influences of cultural factors. It is inevitable that the selection and application of prepositional meanings are influenced by the different conceptual cognitions of space and time. The different ways of metaphorical thinking influence the usage of English prepositions in the Mental Domain, Logical-Relation Domain, Social-Relation Domain, Imaginative Domain and Other Abstract Relation Domains.Above all, the author holds that the combination of Metaphor Theory and Image Schema Theory can interpret the extension mechanism of spatial and non-spatial senses of English core prepositions more comprehensively. In addition to the study of point-side-body prepositions AT, ON, IN, the author finds that the prototypical meanings of core prepositions have strong tendency of metaphorical extension, and they can be metaphorically extended into many non-space domains. To some extend, the findings can facilitate the learning of English prepositions systematically, and provide some motivational implications for English teaching. |
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