COLLOCATION AND PREPOSITION SENSE: A PHRASEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO

337 Pages·2011·3.4 MB·English

COLLOCATION AND PREPOSITION SENSE:
A PHRASEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE COGNITION OF
POLYSEMY

by

YOSHIHITO KAMAKURA

A thesis submitted to
the University of Birmingham
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English
School of English, Drama and American Studies
College of Arts and Law
The University of Birmingham
February 2011
ABSTRACT

This study explores the relationship between the ‘sense’ of the prepositions over, into and
through and the combined ‘form’ of their preceding and following nouns, using the hypothesis
that the co-occurring nouns can predict different senses of the prepositions. It uses concepts
drawn from both corpus linguistics and cognitive linguistics, in particular drawing on theories
of phraseology formulated by Sinclair and others and on theories of preposition meaning
formulated by Langacker and Taylor.
1,366 instances of the use of the prepositions from the ICE-GB corpus were examined.
The results indicate a relationship between the senses of prepositions and their co-occurring
nouns together with some features of their linguistic behaviour. Over, into and through have
similar patterns when their trajector and landmark are combined. The thesis draws on
statistical information regarding Human, Concrete object and Abstract object classifications to
explore the distribution of sense of over. It uses equivalent information relating to into and
through to reinforce and amend the semantic networks for these prepositions proposed by
Lakoff and by Tyler and Evans.
DEDICATION
To Fusako and Kent
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I came alone to the university and found a high-rise clock tower that psychologically
overpowered me. I was fearful about earning a degree at a foreign country. My wife came to
Birmingham three months afterwards and our life in pursuit of the PhD degree started.
With a deep sense of gratitude, I want to express my sincere thanks to my supervisors.
Professor Susan Hunston has offered immense help and valuable suggestions. Every time we
have met, for five years, I have enjoyed her cheerful supervision. Without her help, I could
never have reached this stage. My sincere thanks are due to Dr. Jeannette Littlemore for
offering clear advice, encouragement and guidance in the course of writing this thesis. I am
also grateful to Dr. Eve Richards for offering clear advice about my academic writing any
weekend when I asked for proofreading. I owe particular thanks to Ken and Liz Pheysey for
their tremendous help and great generosity in treating my wife and me as part of their family.
Finally, my greatest gratitude always goes to my dearest wife, Fusako. I would like to thank
her for her constant care, especially for making a lunch box for me every day that I studied at
the university. Without her loving support, I would never have completed my present work.
My son, Kent, was born in England in August last year. I arrived here on my own and
then Fusako came. Now, three of us are going back to my home country, Japan, with the title
of PhD.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7
2.1 Categorization 7
2.2 Prototype and semantic network. 12
2.2.1 Prototype 12
2.2.2 Semantic network 19
2.2.3 Trajector and landmark 23
2.3 Embodiment and image schema 28
2.4 Metonymy and metaphor 38
2.5 Phraseology 50
2.6 Lexical priming 53
2.7 Approaches of corpus linguistics to prepositions 58
2.8 Meaning and lexical representation 63
2.8.1 Lexical representation and semantic composition 64
2.8.2 LCCM Theory concerning polysemy 67
2.9 Summary of the chapter 69

Chapter 3 DATA AND METHODOLOGY 71
3.1 Corpus data 72
3.2 HCA classification. 74
3.2.1 Experiment on the HCA classification. 76
3.2.2 Metaphorical extension of the HCA combinations 80
3.3 Prototypicality of the senses of prepositions 84
3.3 Summary of the chapter 87

Chapter 4 PILOT STUDY: TR AND LM COMBINATIONS IN SEVEN
PREPOSITIONS 89
4.1 Chi-square test of the distribution of HCA combinations 90
4.2 Cluster dendrogram and analysis of the clustering 94
4.3 Summary of the chapter 99

Chapter 5 THE MEANING COMPONENTS OF OVER 101
5.1 The polysemy and semantic network of over 101
5.2 The case studies of over 103
5.2.1 The central schema of over. 103
5.2.2. Motivations behind the semantic network 107
5.2.3. Sentential components of senses of over 109
5.3 Corpus research on the guiding senses of over 111
5.3.1 Overview of the distribution of senses 113
5.3.2 Sense and the sentential components in the corpus 115
5.3.3 Implications about the analysis of the over senses in the semantic network 157
5.4 TR and LM combination 164
5.4.1 Distribution of TR and LM combination 164
5.4.2 Overused and underused combinations of TR and LM 168
5.4.2.1 Overused CC combination 169
5.4.2.2 Overused AA combination 172
5.4.2.3 Underused CA and AC combination 175
5.4.3 Embodied and figurative senses with the TR of human being 177
5.5 Summary of the chapter 179

Chapter 6 ANALYSIS OF INTO 181
6.1 Distribution of HCA 183
6.2 Central and derived senses of into 187
6.2.1 Mental representation of the central sense of into 187
6.2.2 Trajector and landmark of into 191
6.2.3 Derived senses of into 193
6.3 HCA classification of into 198
6.3.1 CC combination and the central sense of into 198
6.3.2 HC and CH combination 203
6.3.3 HH combination 207
6.3.4 HA combination 210
6.3.5 AH, CA and AC combination 215
6.3.6 AA combination 217
6.4 Implications of the HCA combination analysis 221
6.5 Summary of the chapter 228

Chapter 7 ANALYSIS OF THROUGH 229
7.1 Distribution of HCA 230
7.2 Central and derived senses of through 236
7.2.1 Mental representation of the central sense of through 236
7.2.2 Derived senses of through 239
7.3 HCA classification of through 242
7.3.1 CC and HC combinations and the central sense of through 243
7.3.2 CH and HH combinations 255
7.3.3 HA combination 258
7.3.4 AH, CA and AC combinations 264
7.3.5 AA combination 266
7.4 Implications of the HCA combination analysis 268
7.5 Summary of the chapter 274

Chapter 8 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 275
8.1 HCA combinations and the senses of the preposition 276
8.2 The HCA combinations and semantic network 286
8.3 Metaphor in the semantic network 294
8.4 Applications of the results and limitations 301
8.5 Conclusion and future work 307

APPENDICES 310
REFERENCES 416
APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Enquiries and questionnaire concerning classification (Chapter 3) 310
Human (animate), concrete object and abstract object classification enquiries 311
Questionnaire of senses of preposition 313

Appendix 2: Statistics of the Pilot Study (Chapter 4) 314
3x3 distribution of HCA combination of seven prepositions 315

Appendix 3: HCA classification and the senses of over of the ICE GB data
(Chapter 5) 316
Concordance lines of verb + over 317
Concordance lines of verb + noun phrase + over 326
Proto-scene (1) 329
On-the-other-side-of (2A) 330
Above-and-beyond (Excess I) (2B) and Completion (2C) 334
Transfer (2D) 335
Temporal (2E) 336
Covering (3) 339
Examining (4) 341
Focus-of-attention (4A) 342
More (5A) and Over-and-above (Excess II) (5.A.1) 344
Control (5B) and Preference (5C) 345
Reflexive (6) and Repetition (6A) 347

Appendix 4: HCA classification and the senses of into of the ICE GB data
(Chapter 6) 348
Concordance lines of verb + into 349
Concordance lines of verb + noun phrase + into 364
CC combination 367
HC combination 371
HH combination 375
HA combination 376
CA combination 382
AC combination 383
AA combination 384
Appendix 5: HCA classification and the senses of through of the ICE GB data
(Chapter 7) 390
Concordance lines of verb + through 391
Concordance lines of verb + noun phrase + through 400
CC combination 402
HC combination 404
CH combination 406
HH combination 407
HA combination 408
AH combination 411
CA combination 412
AC combination 413
AA combination 414
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Semantic category of BIRD 9
Figure 2.2 Family resemblance 10
Figure 2.3 Mental representations of in, on, at 13
Figure 2.4 Mental representations of ‘Jump over the box’ and ‘The plane flew over
the town’ 18
Figure 2.5 Idealised semantic network with radial category 20
Figure 2.6 Semantic network of over by Lakoff 21
Figure 2.7 Semantic network of over by Tyler and Evans 23
Figure 2.8 Rubin’s vase 24
Figure 2.9 Trajector and landmark 25
Figure 2.10 Trajector and landmark of through 27
Figure 2.11 Pear in the bowl 31
Figure 2.12 Distribution patterns of the dependence sense of on 35
Figure 2.13 Distribution patterns of the locative and dependence senses of on 36
Figure 2.14 Mapping from the source domain to the target domain 40
Figure 2.15 The moving time model 47
Figure 2.16 The moving ego model 48
Figure 2.17 The semantic network for over 49
Figure 2.18 Semantic associations of collocation with preposition 63
Figure 2.19 Architecture of LCCM Theory 65
Figure 4.1 Dendrogram of the residuals of HCA combinations 94
Figure 4.2 HCA distribution patterns in the trajector-centred order 97
Figure 4.3 HCA distribution patterns in the landmark-centred order 98
Figure 5.1 The central schema of over, adapted from Lakoff 104
Figure 5.2 The central schema of over, adapted from Dewell 105
Figure 5.3 The proto scene of over 106
Figure 5.4 Configuration of an on-line meaning as in The hummingbird hovered
over the flower 109
Figure 5.5 Component, relational, and integrative schema 110
Figure 5.6 The semantic network for over 112
Figure 5.7 The mental representation of (15) and (16) 118
Figure 5.8 The mental representation of (17) and (18) 119
Figure 5.9 The cat jumped over the wall 122
Figure 5.10 Geometric transition of covering sense, partly adapted from Lakoff 135
Figure 5.11 The mental representation of more sense 143