Chung, Siaw‐Fong1 Katarzyna Proctor2 Wei‐Chen Kao1.
1 National Chengchi University 2 University of Wrocław, Poland
Most people understand the term ‘preposition’ in the way how prepositions appear in English.
In a study of Mandarin ‘localizer’, a term referring to prepositional phrases in Mandarin, Chappell, Ming, and Peyraube (2007:197-198) say the following:
Much to its detriment, the study of adpositions in Chinese languages has generally made use of prepositional languages such as English and other European languages as its point of reference[…]Postpositions in Mandarin[…]include not only locative markers[…]but also what are commonly known as particles.
Prepositional meanings in Polish are expressed through prefixes (cf. Przybylska, 2006). For Malay, preposition is a more acceptable terminology (cf. Djenar, 2007) but many scholars still prefer to see a prepositional phrase in form of ‘locative marker+relational noun’ (Wienold &
Rohmer, 1997). In the examples (1)-(3), prepositional phrases in each language are shown.
While there have been many studies which discuss the individual functions of prepositions and concepts of the like in different languages, this study will investigate how prepositions could appear with verbs and the kind of metaphorical extensions that emerges under such combination. The three languages in (1)-(3), which are of different origins, will be selected for investigation. For Mandarin, the SOURCE-GOAL prepositions wang3 ‘towards’, dao4 ‘till’, and cong2 ‘from’ are selected. For Polish, the prefixes do- ‘towards’ and prze-
‘over/through’ are investigated. For Malay, the free forms ke ‘towards’ and dari(pada) ‘from’
are selected. The mechanism of selection is tabulated in Table 1 – through finding matching forms. The forms of interest for this work are shaded. We hypothesize that, despite the differences in the three languages (see missing cells in Table 1), the original ‘prepositions’ in each language may adopt new meanings to a certain extent, be they morphemes (Mandarin), prefixes (Polish) or as free forms (Malay) when co-appearing with verbs.1
Table 1: Selection of ‘Prepositions’ in Three Languages
TOWARDS TILL FROM/THROUGH
Mandarin wang3 dao3 cong2
Polish do- N/A (Mostly expressed through do-) prze- ‘through’
Malay ke sampai (mostly verb)
hingga (Pure preposition)2 dari(pada)
The results of all three languages are presented in Table 2 to follow. (The enlarged table is also enclosed at the end.) For ‘prepositions’ indicating the meaning of TOWARDS, it was found that Mandarin [verb+wang3] and Malay [verb ke] consist mostly of literal usage, i.e., the construction meanings depend on the meaning of the verbs that goes with each. This happens also to the Polish [do+verb] but there are only few instances of literal combination were found for Polish. Most of the [do+verb] combinations in Polish have figurative meaning, mostly indicating the amount of effort involved in doing the action. In Polish, the action
reach the destination through running’ and an additional meaning ‘to reach the destination’
appears through the construction. For Mandarin, [verb+wang3] has few instances reflecting a figurative meaning. These instances mostly describe actions that are intention-related which are mostly irrealis in nature.3 Malay [verb ke] shows almost no instance of figurative use.
Table 2: Co-occurrence of Verbs with ‘Preposition’ in Mandarin, Polish, and Malay
For TILL, only the Mandarin [verb+dao4] fulfills this combination. Unlike TOWARDS, [verb+dao4] shows a majority of literal meaning with emphasis on the final point of the event.
The verbs are likely to be accomplishment (e.g., learn) or achievement (e.g., arrive) verbs.
For FROM/THROUGH, instances of [verb+cong2] in Mandarin are also mostly literal though in this combination, cong2 appears mostly as an adverb (to mean ‘follow’) rather than a ‘preposition’ (‘from’). There are complicated meaning extensions between ‘from’ and
‘follow’ which are beyond the scope of this paper. Figurativeness is hard to distinguish for [verb+cong2] due to the extensions of ‘follow’ (not ‘from’). In this FROM/THROUGH category, both Polish and Malay display interesting patterns. For Polish, [prze+verb] displays two general patterns – one group showing tendency to co-occur with action/manner verbs to produce a literal meaning that focuses on ‘the process from point A to point B’; the other group showing an extension of the co-appeared stative verbs (wet, freeze) to indicate ‘an entirety of the state.’ For Malay, dari (‘from’ where) is originally used for an inanimate source while an animate source will select daripada (‘from’ whom). In their combination, [verb dari]
shows more literal usages for location-only (unlike English, dari does not have a temporal extension) whereas [verb daripada] shows to consist many formulaic patterns which are also an oblique use (e.g., constituted by, caused by).
each matched pattern, there are still cross-linguistic discrepancies that are worthy of exploration. It is interesting to observe how the same combination of [verb(+)‘preposition’]
(or vice versa for Polish prefixes) could bring about literal-figurative tendency that differs vastly in the three languages studied.
(1) Mandarin4
‘Where do you come from?’
(2) Polish
(a) Doszedł do domu.
DO-go.3Sing.past to home [prefix]
‘He reached his home.’
(b) Doholował łódź do brzegu.
DO-tow.3Sing.past boat to shore
‘He towed a boat to the shore.’
(c) Dogonił psa.
DO-get.to.destination.by.chasing.3Sing.past dog
‘He chased and reached the dog.’
(3) Malay
‘Where do you (come) from?’
Footnotes
1‘Preposition’ (in single quotations) is used to refer to all three languages for the ease of reference.
2 The words in this cell are not included because sampai is mostly used as a verb, and hingga is a pure preposition indicating a range which is less connected with the preceded verb. E.g., 12 hingga 14 tahun ‘from 12 to 14 years’.
3 Most uses of wang3 that we found refer to on-going or past events. However, wang3 can also indicate immediate future event in a simple instructions such as ni3 wang3 dong1 zou3 ‘you walk toward the east’ which may not have taken place.
4 Chao (1968) called these ‘place word’.
5 Only di and ke are generally-accepted locative markers in Malay. Dari(pada) is termed as ‘preposition’ here.
References
Chappell Hilary, Li Ming, and Alain Peyraube 2007. Chinese Linguistics and Typology: The State of the Art. Linguistic Typology 11.1: 187-211.
Chao, Yen Ren. 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley/LA: University of California Press.
Przybylska, Renata. 2006. Schematy wyobrażeniowe a semantyka polskich prefiksów
czasownikowych do-, od-, prze-, roz-, u-. Kraków: Universitas.
Meaning: Papers in Honor of Yoshihiko Ikegami. Tokyo: Kurosio. pp. 143-185.
Djenar, Dwi Noverini. 2007. Semantic, Pragmatic, and Discourse Perspectives of
Preposition Use: A Study of Indonesian Locatives. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
‘Preposition’