Acognitive Semantic Study Of Spatial Prepositions Based On The Idealized Cognitive Model

In this thesis, Idealized Cognitive Model(ICM) is the theoretical foundation and spatial preposition ON is the object of this thesis. BNCweb and Ant Conc are the research tools, and the research data is selected from the British National Corpus(BNC). This thesis mainly studies the spatial senses and non-spatial senses of the spatial preposition ON as well as how to derive non-spatial senses through ICM.The main point of cognitive semantics is that language is grounded in our daily experience, which focuses on the relation between language and general cognitive competence. Along with deeply perceive to the world, human beings form a relatively stable state, namely cognitive model(CM). Comparably, ICM is not a direct reflection of an objective state of affairs in the world, but an abstraction of our experiences.Therefore, there is no essential difference between ICM and CM, and ICM is a highlighted and idealized way to express experience and knowledge in CM.ICM is essentially a domain matrix, which is a cluster model including several sub-ICMs. ICM has four basic structures that have differences and connections.Propositional structure serves as the starting point for the expression of image-schemas. Image-schematic structure constitutes the foundation of metaphoric mappings and metonymic mappings. Metaphoric mappings and metonymic mappings are two different methods to establish projections from spatial senses to non-spatial senses.Spatial preposition ON is one of the most frequently used prepositions. Thus,this thesis takes ON as the object of the study. There are three research questions to be exploited as the following:1. What are the spatial senses of spatial preposition ON based on ICM?2. What are the non-spatial senses of spatial preposition ON based on ICM?3. What is the relation of the spatial senses of spatial preposition ON and non-spatialsenses of spatial preposition ON?First, speaking from the propositional structure, the senses of spatial preposition ON consist a hierarchical structure. CONTACT is the image schema of S1, and CONTACT schema is also the prototypical image schema of spatial preposition ON.The other image schemas are derived from CONTACT image schema transformations.Second, the senses of ON are concluded in 12 senses and represented by S1-S12.These senses are divided into two sub-ICMs, namely, spatial senses(S1, S2,S3, S4) and non-spatial senses(S5, S6, S7, S8, S9, S10, S11, S12).Third, S1 is the center of S2, S3 and S4, and the spatial senses are the sub center of non-spatial senses. The non-spatial senses are deriving from spatial senses.The derivation of non-spatial senses are not random, but correlate with the spatial senses. The non-spatial senses may be derived by several projections, which can be manifested by the rich mappings and lean mappings. The propositional structure and image-schematic structure are the foundations of metaphors and metonymies.Metaphoric mappings and metonymic mappings are the methods to realize the sensesextension of spatial preposition ON.This thesis is based on ICM to study the senses of spatial preposition ON,which breaks the limits of the simple research view in previous studies. This thesis in detail illustrates the relations between spatial senses and non-spatial senses. However,this thesis still has space to further studying. For instance, spatial prepositions could extend to other orientation under the different culture influence.