A Cognitive Study Of The English Preposition FOR Under The Principled Polysemy Model

This thesis is devoted to the polysemy of the English preposition for (marked as FOR) under the Principle Polysemy Model within the framework of the Cognitive Linguistics. Prepositional polysemy has been one of the hottest issues in the field of linguistics. Traditional approaches have confined it to linguistic elements, focusing on the relationship between a certain preposition in question and other lexemes at the sentence level; while cognitive approaches examine the meanings of prepositions from the relationship between language, mind, and social-experience. Cognitive linguists develop different approaches to the prepositional polysemy such as Lakoff’s "Full Specification", Kreitzer’s "Partial Specification", etc. However, these approaches still remain controversial in the field.The "Principle Polysemy Model", proposed by Tyler and Evans, aims at overcoming the defects of the previous approaches. So far, the studies on the prepositional polysemy under this model are mostly focused on those prepositions with strong spatial meanings, while little ink has been spilled on such preposition as FOR which has less strong spatial meanings. The only two research articles available drew completely different conclusions on both the primary sense and the other distinct senses. Therefore, the present thesis attempts to approach the semantic network of FOR based on the Principled Polysemy Model, focusing on the following two questions:(1) what is the primary sense of FOR and why? (2) What are the distinct senses and cognitive mechanisms for meaning extension of FOR?The major data sources of the present research are as follows:The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of the English Language, Collins Dictionary of the English Language and an on-line etymology dictionary. It is concluded (1) that the primary sense of FOR is that the oriented trajector is moving towards the landmark with its functional element of purpose as the key factor and (2) there are eleven distinct senses except for the primary sense in the semantic network of FOR -- the Purpose Sense, the Destination Sense, the Intended Recipient Sense, the Benefactive Sense, the Reference Sense, the Appropriateness, the Cause-or-reason Sense, the Substitution Sense, the Supporting Sense, the Spatial Distance Sense and the Temporal Length Sense. These distinct senses derive from the primary sense through pragmatic strengthening and are instantiated in the semantic network, while on-line meanings arise through inferencing strategies and are not stored in the network of FOR.The present study boasts two contributions. On the one hand, it illustrates the explanatory power of the "Principled Polysemy Model" on the polysemy of English prepositions with less strong spatial meanings. On the other hand, it is expected to shed some light on the acquisition and study of FOR as well as other English prepositions.