Making sense of the abstract uses of the prepositions in and on

Making sense of the abstract uses of the prepositions in and on Anja Jamrozik (a.jamrozik@u.northwestern.edu) Dedre Gentner (gentner@northwestern.edu) Department of Psychology, Northwestern University 2029 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 USA Abstract Prepositions name spatial relationships (e.g., book on a table), but also abstract, non-spatial relationships (e.g., Jordan is on a roll)—raising the question of how the abstract uses relate to the concrete spatial uses. The two most frequently extended prepositions are in and on, and there has been no consensus about what aspects of spatial meaning they retain when used abstractly. We propose that what is preserved is the relative degree of control between the located object (the figure) and the reference object (the ground). Building on previous work showing that this aspect of meaning can distinguish conventional abstract uses of in and on (Jamrozik & Gentner, 2011), we found that it is also extended to the comprehension and production of novel abstract uses. We discuss the application of the findings to second language instruction. Keywords: prepositions; metaphor; spatial language; abstract language; semantics. Introduction Prepositions are used to name relationships between entities. Although we think of prepositions as naming spatial relationships (e.g., The cup is on the table), they also name abstract relationships, such as the relationship between a person and a state of mind (Mary is in a frenzy). These abstract uses are common, making up roughly 40% of preposition occurrences (Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, Krennmayr, & Pasma, 2010). Understanding how these abstract uses arise, and how they relate to the concrete spatial senses of the terms, is important for theories of semantic structure and language change, for computational theories of language processing, and for applications such as machine translation and second language learning. For all these reasons, accounting for the abstract uses of prepositions has been an important endeavor. There have been some key advances in understanding abstract extensions of prepositions. For example, metaphoric extensions of the preposition over have been explored within the conceptual metaphor framework (Brugman & Lakoff, 1988; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). However, a significant gap in this body of knowledge is that there is no consensus account for the abstract uses of in and on— the most frequently extended prepositions in English (Cameron, 2003). In previous work (Jamrozik & Gentner, 2011) we proposed and tested such an account. The basic idea of our continuum of control account is that in and on differ in the distribution of control within the figure-ground relationship 1 . When used to name spatial relationships, on tends to convey relatively greater figure control of the relationship (e.g., a fly on the plate), and in tends to convey relatively greater ground control of the relationship (e.g., a fly in a hand). In prior work, we found that this distinction is extended to abstract uses: that is, abstract uses of on convey greater figure control than abstract uses of in. Here we ask whether the continuum of control account extends to novel abstract uses of in and on. In Experiment 1, we ask whether this account applies to the comprehension of novel abstract uses (e.g., in a frive), improving on a prior study. In Experiment 2, we turn to production: we ask whether the continuum of control account predicts the production of novel abstract uses. We first review accounts of spatial uses of in and on, and show that figure-ground control is important for these uses. We then describe our continuum of control account of abstract in and on use and present our studies. Importance of relative control for spatial uses of prepositions Early accounts of spatial uses of in and on (e.g., Bennett, 1975; Herskovits, 1986; Leech, 1969; Miller & Johnson-Laird, 1976) focused on the Following Talmy (1983), we use the terms figure and ground to describe the participants in the relationship named by a preposition (e.g., a figure is in a ground).