U17

Pronunciation of Prepositions (out, onto, forward, through, behind, etc.) helps to distinguish Preps from Advs since Preps, normally unstressed, are stressed when they are prepositional Advs (He 'stayed in the house vs. He stayed 'in)

1. THE NOTION OF SPATIAL REFERENCE

3. POSITION

Where?

Adverbs/Adverbial phrase

Nouns/Noun phrase

London, two kilometres away

Adverbial clause

The keys aren't where I kept them

It is the answer to the question of: "Where...?"
Where did you leave the bicycle? I left it...

Prepositional phrase

Linguistic levels

Syntax

The notion of spatial reference can be expressed by the different linguistic levels

Lexis

Morphology

Semantics

Phonology

Compound words (i.e. into, onto, etc)

Which combinations of words constitute grammatical strings and which do not (NOT: She goes at school in bike BUT She goes to school by bike).

1) the expression of spatial reference regarding the choice between Prep phrases or Adverbial phrases (i.e. He works here vs. He drives in this bank), 2) lexical choices regarding different types of prepositions (on vs. above; opposite vs. in front of), & specific prepositions (i.e. upwards, onto, inside)

Meaning where syntactic and morphological levels do not tell the difference (He left the keys on the table = on the surface and not inside a drawer).

2. MAIN FEATURES OF PREPOSITIONS

Closed-class items

formally invariable

No inflectional marks

This differentiates Pps (& Advs, Conjs, Prons) from Vbs, Adjs & Nouns, as they do inflect. Pps only allow modification by expressions of temporal or spatial extent: "three hours after the start", "far below the surface".

Positive Position & Destination

PP of place are typically adjuncts or postmodifiers

There is a cause-effect relationship btw P & D:

He went to Cambridge > He is at Cambridge
He climbed onto the tree > He is on the tree
He dived into the sea > He is in the sea

Destination

Dimension

At-type

0) POINT

On-type

1&2) LINE or SURFACE

In-type

2&3) AREA or VOLUME

Position

Accompanies a Vb of dynamic ‘motional’ meaning (go, move, fly, walk, swim etc.). Although in colloquial English, IN & ON are used for both position & destination, Most Vbs of motion require onto & into for destinational meaning:
Don’t run in the school [when you are inside the building]
Don’t run into the school [that is, from outside it]

POINT

At the bus stop.
At the South Pole.
At the end of the street.

LINE

The city is situated on the River Rhin.
The city is situated on the boundary.
The city is situated on the coast

SURFACE

A notice was pasted on the wall.
A notice was pasted on the ceiling.
A notice was pasted on my back.

AREA

In the world
In the village

VOLUME

In a box
In a bathroom
In a cathedral

A dimensionless location, a mere point in relation to the position of an element (no length/width/heigth)

Line (reference to length) Surface/Area (two dimensional area: length & width)

Volume (Reference to length, width & height)

3 types of Prepositions depending on the dimensional properties of the location concerned

PPs take the form of adjuncts (relating an event to a location) or postmodifiers (relating some object to a location).
AT, ON, IN / TO, ONTO, INTO

(static location)

(movement with respect to an intended location)

A PP of position can accompany most verbs, although it is Associated with Vbs of stative meaning, (be, stand, live, etc.) Also, with the Vb arrive (She arrived/On her arrival in London/at the bus stop)

TO: He went to the office
ONTO: He fell onto the floor
INTO: He walked into the park

AT: He stood at the door
ON: The note is on the wall
IN: The keys are in my pocket

IN & ON

The rain made patterns on the window [glass surface]
The players were practicing on the field [surface for sports]
She was sitting on the grass [surface: the grass is short]

A face appeared in the window/mirror [Framed area]
Cows were grazing in the field [enclosed area of land]
She was sitting in the grass [volume: the grass is long]

IN & AT

IN for sizable territories (continents, countries, cities):

In Asia / In China / In Beijing
She's at / in Oxford.(she's a student at Oxford University / she's staying in the city of Oxford)

For towns/villages either, according to the POV:

We will met her at Oxford street (As a point on a map)
I saw her while I was shopping in Oxford street (open area)
He works in London, but lives in the country (a big area, city)
Our plane refueled at London on its way from LA to Moscow. (a point on the map)

TO & TOWARDS

TO: completive movement in the direction of a place (completion)
TOWARDS: movement without the idea of completion (in the direction of)

The Smiths moved to Melbourne [suggest actual arrival]
They drove towards Melbourne [suggest they are still on their way]

Negative Position & Destination

The negative Pps can be defined simply by adding the word not to their corresponding counterpart:
Away from (=not at) Off (=not on) Out of (=not in)

AWAY FROM, OFF, OUT OF

With buildings either:

She works at a bank (building in its institutional/functional aspect)
She works in a publishing house (a three-dimensional structure)

There is also a cause-effect relation btw negative D & P:

I drove away from home > I am away from home
The book fell off the shelf > The book is off the shelf

Relative Position & Destination (& Passage)

Vertically ⬆ ⬇

OVER, ABOVE, ON TOP OF
UNDER, BELOW, BENEATH/ UNDERNEATH

Horizontally ⬅ ➡

IN FRONT OF, BEFORE
BEHIND, AFTER

The antonyms ~ are converse opposites (<>):
The picture is above the shelf = The shelf is below the picture
The bus is in front of the car = The car is behind the bus.

OVER & UNDER indicate spatial proximity (close or touching)
ABOVE & BELOW indicate “on a higher/lower level than”
UNDERNEATH & BENEATH are less common (formal) substitutes for UNDER

Other space prepositions

BY, BESIDE & BESIDES
NEAR (TO) & CLOSE TO
OPPOSITE (TO)

BETWEEN, AMONG(ST), AMID(ST)

BETWEEN & AMONG (B relates the position of 2 exclusive objects. A relates to more than 2 or a set of non-exclusive objects):
The house stands between two farms
The house stands among farms

BY & BESIDE (at the side of): He was standing by / beside the door
WITH (in the same place as): I left the keys with my wallet
BESIDE & BESIDES (locative & non-locative):
A young man stood beside Mary /
Besides Mary, there were other students (apart from) /
She is kind. Besides, she is good-looking (in addition).

(A)ROUND & ABOUT

They can also express Relative Destination (movement):

He threw a blanket over her.
I dashed behind the bush
We all went underneath the trees.

NEAR (TO) & CLOSE TO (the only Pps which inflect for comparison):
She was sitting nearer to / nearest to / next to me
She was sitting closer to / closest to me
OPPOSITE means “facing” & has an optional TO:
Her house is opposite to mine

(A)ROUND (surrounding position):
We were sitting (a)round the campfire
AROUND & ABOUT (in the area of/in various positions):
There are very few taxis about / around here
The guests were standing about / around the room

AMID & AMIDST (formal: in the midst/middle of, surrounded by). An indefinite number of entities):
The deserted house stood amid snow-covered trees.

Passage

OVER, ABOVE, ON TOP
UNDER, BELOW UNDERNEATH/BENEATH
IN FRONT OF
BEHIND

movement towards & then away from a place
(movement to a place on the way to somewhere else)

Either Destination (moved to stay there) or Passge (moved there on the way to somewhere else):
He jumped over a ditch
Someone ran behind the goalposts.

The ball rolled underneath the table
”the ball passed under the table on the way to some other destination” (Passage)
”the ball rolled under the table and stayed there” (Destination)

ACROSS (1/2): On the grass ≈ across the grass
THROUGH (2/3): In the grass ≈ through the grass.
PAST (= by): We drove by / past the Town Hall

ON & ACROSS treat the grass as a flat surface (short grass);
IN & THROUGH treat it as a volume, suggesting height (long grass)
Passage is their primary meaning

4. DIRECTION

5. DISTANCE

Movement

Vertical Axis ↕

Horizontal Axis ↔

Curve ⤵

UP & DOWN (contrast in terms of vertical direction):
We walked up the hill and down the other side
Can also be used idiomatically with horizontal reference:
She went up / down the coast/the road (expressing along)

ALONG (from one end towards the other / in parallel with):
I took my dog for a walk along the river/street
ACROSS (from one side to the other):
Be careful when you walk across the street

(A)ROUND: We run (a)round the corner

Orientation

with reference to a directional path (in the direction of)

Most Pps which express Relative destination, Passage &
Movement with reference to a directional path can be also used in a static sense of Orientation. A new factor: a point of orientation at which the speaker is standing

BEYOND (on the far side of) its primary meaning is one of orientation:
I could see the town beyond the field [On the other side from me]

ACROSS, THROUGH, PAST, OVER (Pps of passage) combine the meaning of ‘beyond' with more specific info about dimension:
They live across the fields. [that is, from me]

We can specify the point of orientation (or viewpoint) by using a from-phrase:
He lives up / down / along / across the road from me.

Resulting meaning

Pps with the meaning of motion can usually also have a static resultative meaning when combined with TO BE, indicating the "state of having reached the destination”:

The horses jumped over the fence (motion)
The horses are over the fence. (have now jumped over)

Pervasive meaning

THROUGHOUT, OVER, WITH & the axis-type PPs (UP, DOWN, AROUND, ALONG, ACROSS)

Out of context, resultative meaning is not always distinguishable from other static meanings. Its presence, however, is often signalled by certain adverbs (already, just, at last, (not) yet, etc):

The horses have just/already jumped over the fence

Resultative meaning is characteristically found with negative prepositions FROM, OUT OF, etc, or with prepositions of “passage”: ACROSS, THROUGH, PAST:

At last we are out of the forest.
When you're past the next obstacle, you can relax.

THROUGHOUT meaning “all through” is the only Pp whose primary meaning is “pervasive” (=all-inclusive):

The epidemic has spread throughout the country

all-inclusive (in all directions)

static resultative meaning: final state

OVER, THROUGH & the axis type PPs, especially when preceded by all, have pervasive meaning:

He painted (all) over the walls (covered them).
Chaos reigned (all) through the house.
There were crowds (all) along the route.
They put flowers (all) around the statue.

WITH also has pervasive meaning in:

The ground was covered with snow.
The garden was buzzing with bees

NPs of measure

Expressed by means of NPs of measure (a foot, a few yards, ten miles, a long way, etc.). They can modify:

Adverbs/Prepositions of place:

They live a long way away.
The valley lay two thousand feet below them.
They flew two hundred miles (to the) West.

If the reference is to movement, the question form is:

How far did he run?
But if the reference is to static location, it is:
How far away do they live?

CONCLUSION

The expression of spatio-temporal relations in English is very different from the Spanish way. This is the reason why students find it really difficult to use prepositions in English.

Two units/entities

The 2nd

The 1st

The 2nd unit, known as the Prepositional Complement, is a Noun, NP (A man in the front row), or an equivalent structure: pronouns (This is a present for him), nominalized Adjectives (He fought against the most intelligent), nominalized Adverbs (We observed him from here), & infinitives (non-finite clauses) (Andrew took it to read it)

The second unit refers back (is linked) to the first, which may be a Vb (i.e. He is drinking out of a dirty glass), an Adj phrase (i.e. He is afraid of spiders), or a NP (i.e. The man in blue jeans is looking at you). In these cases (Adj & Vb), prepositional phrases will function as adverbials, that is, adjuncts (In a few minutes, we‟ll know the results/We‟ll know the results in a few minutes).

Often they also include words serving to show the semantic role or grammatical function in the clause of their NP complement: "He was arrested by the police"

Syntactic function

Complement of the preposition (a NP)

Another part of the sentence

Postmodifier in a NP

The people on the bus were singing

Prepositions are like adverbs but they differ most sharply from adverbs in their complementation and in the fact that many of them do also occur in other constructions. Many words can be used as either prepositions or adverbs. Compare: "He got off the bus at the corner" (Prep) vs. "He got off at the corner" (Adv). "Peter is behind us" (Prep) vs. "He‟s a long way behind" (Adv).

Adverbial/Adjunct

The people were singing on the bus (Adjunct)
In retrospective, she did try to call the police (Disjunct)
On the other hand, he made no attempt to stop her (Conjunct)

Complementation

They were looking at his paintings (Verb complement)
I'm sorry for his parents (Adjective complement)

Complements to prepositional Verbs, where the verb selects from a handful of short prepositions (i.e. ask for, consist of, depend on, hope for), where the constituent that follows the verb function as an complement/object of the prep. When complementing a Vb or Adj, it is placed after them. When complementing a sentence by means of an adverbial phrase, it is placed at the end

Only PPs that can also act as Advs fall under the category of Adverbial phrases. Not all PPs are Adverbial phrases

Acting as an Adj modifying a Noun
Noun Complement?
Relating an object to a location

Place adjuncts are mainly realized by means of PPs (i.e. in the park, out of my house, etc) since these roles can be clearly specified through the respective prepositional meaning (i.e. in-out, from-to, up-down, through, onto, etc )

Most place adjuncts are PPs (i.e. in a small village, a long way from here, past the sentry, wherever he went, from the desk, etc) which evoke responses to a „where‟ question, such as to position (where?), direction (where?), source (where from?), and distance (how far?) with stative or dynamic verbs. For instance, position and distance use stative verbs (live, stay), whereas direction and source use dynamic verbs (go to, come from).

Spatial reference

(LOCATION IN SPACE)

In order to fully describe the action, spatial reference intends to provide/add information about "where" a situation has happened by using a wide range of Prepositions with reference to:

Area

Lines of passage

Volume

Points in space

Direction

Movement, etc.

in, on, at...

across, over, along...

Surface

inside, outside, in, out...

through, under, behind...

to, from, towards...

through, past, across...

on, onto, off...

Answers can be provided by different word classes/phrases:

Here!, We are swimming in the river

The people on the bus were angry

= Prepositional phrase

Spatial prepositions

LINE

SURFACE & AREA

POINT

"Our garage is on that street"

Reference to length.
NO ref to width & height.

"There is some ice on the street"

Ref to length & width
NO reference to height

VOLUME

"There is only one wardrobe in the room."

Reference to length, width & height.

Dimension-type 0
AT

Dimension-type 1
ALONG

Dimension-type 2
ACROSS

Dimension-type 3
THROUGH

"My Motorbike is at the garage"

Dimensionless location.
NO reference to length, width & height.

Space has 3 dimenstions. Spatial prepositions fall within 4 groups

In relation to an axis
Not simple, but relative

Also, degree modification with "very much" tends to occur with metaphorical rather than literal meanings of prepositions: "You are very much against the idea"

Pps connect 2 units in a sentence, specifying a relationship (of place, time, instrument, cause, etc) between them

Relating an event/ action to a location

In (area)
At (point)

In (area)
On (surface)

over - under
in front - behind

static viewpoint
from-phrase

TO BE already, just, yet ACROSS/THROUGH/PAST

THROUGHOUT, ALL through/over/...

BEYOND

VERBS of motion:

He ran several miles

Do not inflect

Like Dets, Prons & Conjs

complete / incomplete

Pps of passage

BY
BETWEEN
AROUND