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Is there any literature on preposition semantics available online? Much of it is centered around spatial prepositions but what I want to know is more general approaches to the subject matter.

Thank you!

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Here are two things off the top of my head:

  • Tyler, Andrea, and Vyvyan Evans. The Semantics of English Prepositions: Spatial Scenes, Embodied Meaning and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  • Zwarts, Joost. “Spatial Semantics: Modeling the Meaning of Prepositions.” Language and Linguistics Compass 11, no. 5 (May 2017): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12241.

Zwarts (2017) is a recent review article. Despite the title, it also deals with extensions from spatial meanings (e.g. temporal, causal). See especially §3 and §4.1.

Tyler & Evans (2003) is a classic in cognitive linguistics. It seeks to show how different meanings of prepositions are related to each other.

In the formal semantics tradition, different senses of prepositions are often effectively treated as homonyms. This tradition is big in explaining compositionality, such as deriving the meaning of onto from that of on and that of to. But it does not often seek to explain how the different meanings of to in the train to Berlin (spatial direction), five to ten (temporal), and come to our rescue (goal) are related. The cognitive linguistic tradition has many insights to offer on such issues, but in a less formal framework.

Some ideas about polysemy are not spelled out explicitly in the context of prepositions. For instance, Lakoff & Johnson (1980, Metaphors we live by, §9) discuss the two representations of time in terms of space. One is TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT, with examples like The time will come when ... / The time for action has arrived. The other is TIME IS STATIONARY AND WE MOVE THROUGH IT, with examples like We are approaching the end of the year. Both these metaphors also appear in prepositions. For moving time we have coming up in the weeks ahead / I look forward to the arrival of Christmas; for stationary time we have as we go through the years. But because these metaphors don't only appear in prepositional environments, they are usually discussed in broader contexts.

If you are specifically interested in the meaning of causal prepositions, let me know; I can add several sources specifically about that.

Note, however, that it is generally accepted that the spatial meanings of prepositions are basic, at least in most cases, and that other meanings are derived from spatial meanings (either synchronically or diachronically). So most treatments will still have to deal with spatial meanings to some extent.

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  • Thank you for the detailed reply! I'm specifically interested in ways we can examine semantic differences between synonymous prepositions. The first thing that comes to mind in this respect is syntagmatic features that can shed some light on them. But what are the other things one can do? I'm specifically referring to prepositions "of" as in I heard of him and "about" but I'm open to a more general context of research.
    – Shpekard
    Commented Mar 7, 2023 at 21:06
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    There's also Claudia Brugman's dissertation, The Story of Over
    – jlawler
    Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 19:03
  • @Shpekard I don't have any literature specifically on that, I'm sorry. I have done that kind of thing a couple of times, however, and generally it indeed started with coming up with contrastive pairs. The OED is quite helpful for this for English, especially because it gives historical examples. These can give an idea of the development over time, which can help a lot. It requires much more getting your hands dirty (i.e. do a lot of close reading of your source data) than studying some framework, or at least that's how it went for me.
    – Keelan
    Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 19:20
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    In most grammars the two tos you illustrate with are different words and different parts of speech. Specifically, very few linguists analyse the infinitival to in your second example as a preposition.
    – Araucaria - him
    Commented Mar 13, 2023 at 22:25
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    @Araucaria oh wow, I can't believe I did that. I saw to be there on time as a goal clause. Thanks. The reference to Chilton still applies, as he does connect infinitival and prepositional to, but I'll edit to give a less controversial example.
    – Keelan
    Commented Mar 14, 2023 at 8:34

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