Abstract:
Prepositions are typically polysemious items: they have different, but related senses. According to cognitive semantics, the figurative senses of a preposition are extended from its spatial senses through conceptual metaphors. In a pedagogical context, it may be useful to draw learners’ attention to those aspects of a preposition’s spatial sense that are especially relevant for its metaphorization processes. This article examines possible ways in which cognitive semantic analyses of prepositions could be used to anticipate comprehension problems, and facilitate comprehension of the unfamiliar figurative senses.
