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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background and Motivation
English prepositions are frequently used in the English language (Daud & Abusa, 1999) and have been widely studied. Studies conducted by different researchers used different terminologies to refer to the preposition according to what lexical items the preposition co-occurs with. Some researchers used ‘particles’ to refer to the
prepositions co-appearing with phrasal verbs or particle verbs (Darwin & Gray, 1999;
Geld & Letica, 2011; Jon & Fletcher, 2004; Lindner, 1981), and others utilized
‘adverbial particles’ (Gardner & Davies, 2007), ‘spatial particles’ (Tyler & Evans,
2003), and also ‘satellites’ (Talmy, 2003), and still the others referred to prepositions as ‘spatial prepositions’ (Retz-Schmidt, 1988; Vorwerg & Weiß, 2010), ‘dimensional prepositions’ (Grabowski & Miller, 2000), and ‘projective’ (Herskovits, 1986)1. This study chooses the broad term ‘preposition’ to include the discussion of both
prepositions occurring before the prepositional phrase and particles following the phrasal verb and the prepositional verb.
In previous research, many studies explored sentences containing only one
1 However, the different terminologies are not the immediate focus of this thesis.
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preposition in a sentence, and some examined the literal or metaphorical meaning of that preposition (Boers, 1996; Lindstromberg, 2010; Tyler & Evans, 2003). The literal prepositions describe the locative information between entities in space, while
metaphorical prepositions express the non-spatial meanings (Tyler, Mueller and Vu, 2011). The differences between literal and metaphorical prepositions can be
demonstrated by example (1.1a) and example (1.1b). In the example sentences of this thesis, the literal or metaphorical meaning of the prepositions are symbolized by the abbreviations in square brackets – [lit] or [met], and the preposition in discuss is in bold.
(1.1) a. The worker climbs up[lit] the stairs.
b. The squirrels are stocking up[met] the seeds.
The preposition up in example (1.1a) is literal because it expresses the upward direction the workers are moving in on the stairs in space, while the preposition up in example (1.1b) is metaphorical because it expresses the non-spatial idea about the increasing amount of the seeds. With the examination of the literal meaning of prepositions, Tyler and Evans (2003) mentioned that such two prepositions as up and down could be considered as a contrasting pair (Tyler & Evens, 2003:141). Examples
(1.2a) and (1.2b) were drawn from their work.
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(1.2) a. Jennifer climbed up[lit] the mountain. (Tyler & Evens, 2003: 137) b. The water went down[lit] the drain. (Tyler & Evens, 2003: 141)
The preposition up in example (1.2a) conveys the spatial relationship toward an upward direction in which the agent moves, while the preposition down in example (1.2b) denotes the spatial relationship of a downward direction in which the water flows. Such a directional and literal semantic meaning is opposite for the prepositions up and down, and thus making the prepositions a contrasting pair.
In addition to the studies which focused on semantic meanings of one single preposition in one sentence, there are other studies conducted to analyze the semantic meanings of a certain pattern which contains a preposition. Since the preposition is very often used (a) after a verb (e.g., rely on), represented by [VP P] in this research, or (b) before a noun or a noun phrase (e.g., in the box, over a period of time),
represented by [P NP] in this study, the [VP P] and the [P NP] pattern have become two of the most frequently studied patterns. For the [VP P] pattern, researchers found that it can denote a ‘Completive’ semantic meaning which shows the action completes, or a ‘Continuative’ meaning which refers to a continued action (Larsen-Freeman &
Celce-Murcia, 1999; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartik, 1985; Strumpf & Douglas,
2004). Take (1.3a) and (1.3b) for example. When presenting the [VP P] pattern
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meaning in the example sentences of this thesis, the meaning of the pattern containing the preposition is in the parenthesis placed before the sentence, and the pattern in the sentence is underlined.
(1.3) a. (Completive) The kid drinks up the milk.
b. (Continuative) They travel around the country.
The [VP P] pattern, which has up as the preposition, in example (1.3.a) describes the completive state of the milk being consumed; the [VP P] pattern with a preposition around in example (1.3.b) refers to the continued action of going on a trip or moving
from one place to another. For the [P NP] pattern, researchers found that the pattern containing the preposition denote distinct semantic meanings. The semantic meaning that the [P NP] pattern expresses could be ‘Space’, which describes the entities in space, or ‘Time’, which refers to the temporal idea in time (Larsen-Freeman &
Celce-Murcia, 1999; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartik, 1985; Strumpf & Douglas, 2004). See examples (1.4a) and (1.4b). The meaning of the [P NP] pattern is also in the parenthesis placed before the sentence in this thesis, and the pattern in the sentence is underlined
(1.4) a. (Space) The treasure is locked in the safe which is buried under the ground.
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b. (Time) The party is held on Saturday.
The [P NP] pattern in example (1.4a), in the safe, refers to the space hiding the
valuable things, and the pattern in example (1.4b), on Saturday, orients a point in time.
These examples show that when a preposition co-occurs with different lexical items such as a verb or a noun, the [VP P] or the [P NP] pattern containing the preposition projects a variety of semantic meanings.
However, there are limited corpus-based studies investigating a sentence
containing two co-occurring prepositions: one belongs to [VP P] while the other exists in [P NP]. Two examples could be seen as below in examples (1.5a) and (1.5b).
(1.5) a. We have to wake up on Sunday morning very early.
b. The heirloom has been passed down in Smith’s family.
Wake up in example (1.5a) and passed down in example (1.5b) refer to the [VP P]
pattern while the preposition P in the former case is on and the latter is down. The [P NP] pattern for example (1.5a) is on Sunday morning, while that in example (1.5b) is in Smith’s family. And the preposition P in the former example is on and the
preposition P in the latter case is in. These two examples illustrate this type of
sentences, which is symbolized as {[VP P] [P NP]} in this study. VP stands for a verb
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or a verb phrase, P for a preposition, and NP for a noun or a noun phrase. Such sentences carrying two co-appearing prepositions in a {[VP P] [P NP]} construction have rarely been researched in the literature.
Even though not much work on the {[VP P] [P NP]} construction has been found, some systematic observations of {[VP P] [P NP]} might be made, based upon the results from previous studies regarding the semantic meanings of the preposition P, the [VP P] pattern, and the [P NP] pattern. Based upon the results from the literature, this study specifically targets on the construction containing the [V Pup/down] pattern plus the [Pin N] pattern in a single sentence. This targeted construction is symbolized as {[V Pup/down] [Pin N]}, which has two co-occurring prepositions – up/down and in.
The capitalized P followed by the italicized lowercase up/down or in is used from now on in this thesis when referring to the preposition in the targeted construction (i.e., Pup/down and Pin). Building on the results from the literature, we conducted our study in a different way. Unlike previous studies focusing on only one aspect – either focusing on the semantic meanings of the preposition, or the semantic meanings of the [VP P]
or [P NP] pattern – we examine the construction from more than one angle. Our analysis includes not only the semantic meanings of the preposition itself, but also the [VP Pup/down] pattern and the [Pin NP] pattern. In addition, the semantic meaning
co-occurring relationships are also included. Based upon these analyses on the
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targeted construction, we can also form our claim about whether it is as previous studies claimed that up and down form a contrasting pair (Tyler & Evans, 2003) or not (Lindstromberg, 2010: 193). Such an analysis as our study does is multi-leveled, which is addressed by three research questions listed below.
(1) What is the corpus distribution of the literal and metaphorical meanings of Pup/down in the [VP Pup/down] pattern and what is the distribution of the literal and
metaphorical Pin in [Pin NP]?
(2) How similar or different are the semantic meanings of [VP Pup/down] and [P NP] in the construction {[VP P] [P NP]}?
(3) What are the relationships between the meaning of Pup/down in [VP Pup/down] and the meaning of Pin in [Pin NP]; between the meaning of Pup/down in [VP Pup/down] and the meaning of [VP Pup/down]; between the meaning of Pin and the meaning of [Pin NP]; and those between the meaning of [VP Pup/down] and the meaning of [Pin NP]?
The first research question investigates how many preposition up and down in [VP Pup/down] and how many preposition in in [Pin NP] are used literally and
metaphorically. The second research question reveals what semantic meanings the [VP Pup/down] pattern and the [Pin NP] pattern bear. Through the last research question,
we will know (a) whether literal or metaphorical Pup/down correlates to the literal or
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metaphorical meaning of Pin, (b) whether [VP Pup/down] tend to have a literal or metaphorical Pup/down, (c) whether [Pin NP] tend to have a literal or metaphorical Pin, and (d) whether [VP Pup/down] tend to co-appear with certain [Pin NP].