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- Title
TREATMENT OF THE PREPOSITION TO IN ENGLISH LEARNERS' DICTIONARIES: A COGNITIVE APPROACH.
- Authors
Hai Xu; Yue Lou
- Abstract
This article focuses on the treatment of the spatial preposition to in English learners' dictionaries. Few in-depth studies have been undertaken on the preposition to though it has a high frequency and a rich meaning, and both its sense differentiation and definition in dictionaries are sometimes not satisfactory. Adopting a cognitive approach, we classified the spatial uses of the preposition to into six primary groups. Evidence suggests that the dynamic 'Unspecified Source - Path - Goal' schema on the horizontal plane is the proto-schema of to, around which a semantic network can be organised. We then analysed some of its abstract senses, which are metaphorically connected with its spatial uses. Finally, we proposed a 'four-tier' model to arrange the senses of the preposition to. This study not only aims to optimize the preposition entry to for learners' dictionaries, but to explore a new perspective from which spatial preposition entries can be made more reasonable and streamlined.
- Subjects
ENGLISH language dictionaries; PREPOSITIONS; COGNITION; SEMANTICS; PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
- Publication
International Journal of Lexicography, 2015, Vol 28, Issue 2, p207
- ISSN
0950-3846
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/ijl/ecv005