Ｔｈｅ Ｃｏｍｐｒｅｈｅｎｓｉｏｎ ａｎｄ Ｕｓｅ ｏｆ Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ Ｓｐａｔｉａｌ Ｐｒｅｐｏｓｉｔｉｏｎｓ

罗　平

Abstract: The traditional semantic accounts of spatial prepositions, main1ly focusing on the geometric relationship between the locating object and the located object, are proved to be inadequate to explain the comprehension and use of spatial prepositions in all the real situations. To compensate the deficiency, it is necessary to take into consideration the functional relationship between the Figure and the Ground, as well as the cognitive constraint on the choice of the Figure and the Ground.

Keywords: spatial prepositions; geometric relationship; function; the Figure; the Ground

中图分类号： G211文献标识码: A文章编号：1672-1578（2009)5-0009-02

1 Introduction

Navigating oneself through space is a must for the survival of all the roving animals, let alone human beings. We not only need to locate ourselves and other objects around us, but also to communicate the locating information in language. The most commonly used locative expression in English is prepositional phrase. It conveys to a hearer where an object is located in relation to another object. The located object is usually called the Figure (sometimes called Trajector) and the locating object is usually called the Ground (sometimes called Landmark). For example, in “The coffee is in the cup”, the coffee is understood to be located with reference to the cup in the region denoted by the preposition in.

English spatial prepositions are small in number, simple in form, but they are very tricky in their use and comprehension. On the one hand, the intuitive simplicity of prepositions, like in and on, would indicate a correspondingly simple semantic analysis; on the other hand, their wide range of usage seems to confound any straightforward treatment of their meaning (Garrod 1999). This discrepancy, which will be illustrated in the second part of this paper, presents a perennial challenge for semantic analysis of spatial prepositions. To solve this problem, the functional relationship between the Figure and the Ground, and the cognitive constraint on the choice of the Figure and the Ground, which will be discussed in the third and fourth part respectively, are suggested to be incorporated into the traditional semantic analysis of spatial prepositions. At the end of this paper, some suggestions are made to the EFL spatial preposition teaching.

2 Geometric account of spatial prepositions

The main characteristic of the traditional study of spatial prepositions is to treat them as expressing the geometric relationship between the Figure and the Ground. Thus each spatial preposition is associated with a region of space that can be decomposed into basic geometric concepts, such as point, line, plane and volume. For example, at, on, and in are considered to be related to point, plane and volume in geometry respectively. So, if we say, “He is at the grass,” the grass is treated as a one-dimensional space; if we say, “John is on the grass” the grass is treated as a two-dimensional space; if, instead, we say “John is in the grass”, the grass is now a three-dimensional space where John is inside with grass all around. Such analysis is also applied to many other spatial prepositions, such as from, off and out, etc.

Another feature of the traditional study of spatial prepositions is that their definitions are more often than not given in form of propositions. The following are several examples of such definition of in and on cited from Bennet and Herskovits respectively.

According to these definitions, it seems easy to decide the appropriate comprehension and use of a spatial preposition. To do this is simply to decide the truth value of the proposition via judgment of the geometric relationship between the Figure and the Ground in certain reference system. However, the appropriate use and comprehension of spatial prepositions in real situations are far more complicated than the propositional geometric definition suggests. To illustrate this point, consider the appropriateness of the expression “The pear is in the bowl” in relation to the following three pictures.

This expression is quite appropriate for Picture 1, whereas less appropriate for Picture 2 and Picture 3. However, the pear in Picture 1 doesnt exactly locate in the interior of the bowl, thus overriding the geometric definition of in cited above. Yet, the geometric relations between the pear and the bowl are exactly the same in Picture 1 and Picture 2, and in Picture 3 the pear is located geometrically inside the region defined by the bowl. Hence, though the traditional approach has done a great deal of job, it seems to be a little simplistic and idealistic and doesnt fare well in accounting for the appropriate comprehension and use of spatial prepositions in real situations. 3 Functional account of spatial prepositions

As the deficiency of geometric account becomes obvious, many researchers turn to a functional perspective. Among them are Garrod,Sanford, Talmy and others. They propose that underlying the semantic representation of many locatives there must be certain functional constraints on the relationship between the objects being described (between the Figure and the Ground). In their account the basic meaning of spatial prepositions is treated in functional terms, while the geometric relationship is regarded as nothing but accidental. According to their analysis, if X is in Y, then Ys location controls Xs location by virtue of some degree of spatial enclosure of X by Y (Garrod, Ferrier, and Campbell 1999). Thats to say preposition in mainly reflects a certain kind of functional relationship whereby the ground constrains the location of the figure. Thus, for a person to be “in a queue” means that the queue and its movement predict that persons location; for a word to be “in a margin” means that the words location on the page is constrained by the position of the margin (e.g. if in a word processing system you move the margin it should still delimit the position of the word). Similarly, for a pear to be in a bowl means that when the bowl is moved the pear should move with it. This is why “The pear is in the bowl” is considered appropriate for picture 1, in which the movement of the bowl is seen as likely to produce correlated movement of the pear, and inappropriate for Picture 2 and Picture 3, in which such an effect is less likely.

The functional account of spatial prepositions is to some extent supported by several experiments conducted later. Garrod (1999) investigated the degree to which independent judgments of location control predict the choice of in and on in describing a range of scenes. The results showed that functional information had a strong influence on the choice of certain spatial preposition, especially in the absence of conventional geometric relationships. In 2001, Coventry also conducted an experiment, in which the subjects were required to rate the appropriateness of over, under, above and under for describing a set of scenes, which varied in the functional relationship between the Figure and the Ground, and found that the ratings of over, under, above, and below were influenced by whether an object with a particular function was depicted as fulfilling its function or not.

In summary, its evident that besides the geometric relationship, the functional relationship between the objects being described also plays a very significant role in the appropriate comprehension and use of spatial prepositions. However, so far no evidence suggests that the functional information is more basic or primary to the semantic representation of spatial prepositions. Therefore, its prudent to claim that neither geometry nor function alone, but the interplay between the two, can more appropriately account for the comprehension and use of spatial prepositions.

4 Cognitive constraints on the spatial prepositions

The interplay between geometry and function as proposed above goes a long way in explaining the comprehension and use of spatial prepositions in real situations. However, it still leaves something to be desired because it doesnt solve all the problems. Consider a simple sentence like “The book is on the table”. The book is the Figure, and the table is the Ground. The book is located with reference to the table in the region denoted geometrically or functionally by the preposition on. If we reverse the roles of the Figure and the Ground, a sentence like “The table lies under the table” will be produced. You will find this sentence is distinctly odd, even though its grammar is impeccable, and the physical situation it depicts is exactly the same as the previous one. A more striking case is that if X is next to Y, it stands to reason that Y is next to X. “The bike is next to the house” is fine, but “The house is next to the bike” obviously sounds odd. Hence, the asymmetry seems to suggest that the roles of the Figure and the Ground dont allow to be reversed at will.

The above illustrated problem of asymmetry between the Figure and the Ground has nothing to do with the syntax of English, and has nothing to do with the physical situation itself either. Rather, it reflects how we segregate the Figure from the Ground in our perceived world. When we look at a scene, we single the perceptually more prominent object as figure standing out from the ground. Without this process, our perceived world is nothing but a chaos. As to the choice of the Figure and the Ground in a certain circumstance, it is impossible to do away with personal taste or whim, but some general tendency for the human being can still be observed. In fact, the factors governing the choice of which object should be more perceptually prominent to be a figure and which one should be more appropriately serving as a ground are inscrutably various. Following are some typical ones summarized by Talmy(2000).

Table 1. Figure-ground segregation, as encoded in language

Now its clear why “The table lies under the table” and “The house is next to the bike” sound odd. Normally, its the relatively large immovable objects (table and house) that are used as reference object for locating small movable objects (book and bike), not the other way round. Again, if the house in question happens to be toy house, so it is relatively small and movable, then “The house is next to the bike” is quite acceptable.

5 Conclusion and implication for EFL teaching

In an attempt to account for the comprehension and use of spatial prepositions in real situations, we have considered the geometric relationship between the described objects, the functional relationship between them, as well as the cognitive constraints of the human visual system. None of the three is disposable in an overall analysis of spatial prepositions. This suggests that in EFL teaching we should not excessively adhere to the geometric relationship of spatial prepositions while neglecting the other factors. Otherwise, it may hinder the EFL learners from developing full competence for comprehension and use of English spatial prepositions.

References：

[1]Bennett, D. C. Saptial and temporal uses of English prepositions:an essay in stratificational semantics[J].1975.

[2]Coventry, K. R. Prat-sala, M. & Richards, L. The interplay between geometry and function in the comprehension of Over, Under, Above, and Below. Journal of Memory and Language[J]. 2001.

[3]Evans, V & Tyler A. Reconsidering prepositional polysemy networks: the case of “over”. Language[J].2001.

[4]Garrod, S., Ferrier, G. & Campbell, S. In and on: investigating the functional geometry of spatial prepositions[J].Cognition，1999.

[5]Herskovits, A.Language and spatial cognition[J].Cambridge: Cambridge University Press，1986.

[6]Hatch, E. & Brown, C. Vocabulary, semantics and language education[J].Cambridge Language Teaching Library. Beijing: Beijing Foreign Lauguage Research and Teaching Press，1986.

作者简介：罗平，男，四川剑阁人，毕业于四川教育学院，现任教于四川省剑州中学，研究兴趣为英语语言教学。