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THE ROLE OF PREPOSTIONS AND THEIR FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURE
IN ENGLISH.
Abstract : This article aims to the semantic structure of English prepositions from grammatical point of view. Based on the lexicographic sense designations in several English monolingual dictionaries and frequency literature, this work analyzes them to determine with semantic pattern.
Key words: Originate of prepositions, lexical feature, semantic structure, prepositions, grammaticalization, semantic change, semantic change mechanisms, semantic change models,grammatical properties.
Аннотация: Данная статья посвящена семантической структуре английских предлогов с грамматической точки зрения. Основываясь на лексикографических смысловых обозначениях в нескольких английских одноязычных словарях и частотной литературе, эта работа анализирует их для определения семантического образца.
Ключевые слова: происхождение предлогов, лексический признак, семантическая структура, предлоги, грамматикализация, семантическое изменение, механизмы семантического изменения, модели семантического изменения, грамматические свойства.
Annotatsiya: Ushbu maqola Ingliz tilidagi predloglarning semantic strukturasini Grammatik nuqtai nazardan yasalishini Ingliz izohli lug 'ati va maxsus adabiy manbalarga tayanib o 'rganadi.
Kalit so'zlar : predloglarning kelib chiqishi, leksik xususiyat, semantic struktura,predloglar,grammatikalashish,semantic o 'zgarish,semantic o 'zgarish mexanizmi,semantic o 'zgarish modellari, Grammatik birliklar.
A great number of prepositions do not reflect recognizable lexical sources, but among those with lexical sources, spatial nouns constitute the major lexical source classification. The notion location is the most central item on giving meaning, followed by its closely related motion. Besides, the following investigation studies the origination of English prepositions, gives clear classification of some of them.in addition to this, it is highly emphasized to a group of prepositions with their functions in the sentence.
Karimova Nigora, Masters student of SamIFL
INTRODUCTION
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RESEARCH AND METHOD SOURCES.
The current research is based on the semantic structure of English prepositions. The main object of the study is scientific -grammatical materials.
A preposition or postposition typically contains with a noun or pronoun, or more generally a noun phrase, this being called its complement, or sometimes object. A preposition comes before its complement; a postposition comes after its complement. English generally has prepositions rather than postpositions - words such as in, under and of precede their objects, such as
In England, under the table, of Jane - although there are a few exceptions that includes
"ago" and "notwithstanding", as examples below:
"Three days ago" and "financial limitations notwithstanding".
Some languages that use a different word order, have postpositions instead, or have both types. The phrase formed by a preposition together with its complement is called a prepositional phrase such phrases usually play an adverbial role in any sentence like :
As an adjunct to a noun: the weather in March, cheese from France, live with bacteria.
As a predicative expression : The key is under the stone.
As an adjunct to a verb: sleep throughout the winter, danced at the top of the
tables for hours.
As an adjunct to an adjective: happy for them, sick until recently
In the last of these above given examples, the complement has the form of an adverb, which has been nominalized to serve as a noun phrase. Prepositional phrases themselves are sometimes nominalized:
Example: In the cellar was chosen as the best place to hide the bodies. Grammatical properties
Generally, two or more cases, depend on the meaning of the preposition clearly. Some languages have cases that are used exclusively after prepositions (prepositional case), or special forms of pronouns for use after prepositions (prepositional pronoun). For example, one frequency ranking for English word forms begins as follows : of, and, to, a, in, that, it, is, was, I, for, on, you, ...
Adverbs and particles Such cases are related to verbs that can be used either directly or indirectly, and the adverbial forms might in turn be classified as "indirect prepositions". This analysis might also be extended to other adverbs, such as here, there, afterwards, and so on ,
RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.
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even these structures never take objects. Many English phrasal verbs contain particles that are mostly used adverbially,though they mainly have the form of a preposition . Examples are : on -carry on, get on, over -take over, and so on. Some words can be used both as ad positions and as subordinating conjunctions: (preposition) before/after/since the end of the summer (conjunction) before/after/since the summer ended (preposition) It looks like another rainy day (conjunction) It looks like it's going to rain again today
It would be possible to analyze such conjunctions (or even other subordinating conjunctions) as prepositions that take the whole clause as an object. Some grammatical case markings have a similar function to ad positions; a case affix in one language may be equivalent in meaning to a preposition or postposition in another. For example, in English the agent of a passive construction is marked by the preposition by, while in Russian it is marked by use of the instrumental case.
Ad positions combine syntactically with their complement, while case markings combine with a noun morphologically. In some instances it may not be clear which applies; the following are some possible means of making such a distinction: two ad positions can usually be joined with a coordinating conjunction and share a single complement (of and for the people), whereas this is generally not possible with case affixes; One ad position can usually combine with two coordinated complements (of the city and the world), whereas a case denoting an affix would need to be repeated with each other.
Prepositions as Grammatical Category
Prepositions as a grammatical category constitute an important element of grammar in English because they are one of the most exploited grammatical formants ever since the more extensively used case inflectional systems in Old and Middle English were largely replaced by them. It is for this reason that prepositions encode an array of grammatical notions which obviously identifying the semantic and grammatical functions played by the noun phrases they are relatively affixed to. With the advent of cognitive linguistics, and the grammaticalization theory in particular, prepositions, or rather, ad positions cross-linguistically, have been among the most frequently studied fields in recent years, because research turned up interesting universalities across languages in renew further patterns of the ad positional sources, and the paths of the development with similar motivation. On the lexicality-grammaticality continuum, they are largely located close to the end of the grammatically pole, even though they do not exhibit intra-categorical homogeneity .
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Most English prepositions have cross-categorial uses, notably with adverbs and conjunctions Since prepositions as a grammatical category comprise numerous members with diverse nature, individual studies set typology of prepositions based on their semantics. For example, Bennett divides [2,56] the usage into spatial uses and temporal uses; on the other hand, Nam classifies [6,78] locative prepositions into topological invariants, symmetric locatives, orientational locatives, and directional locatives based on their semantic characterization. However, the present study does not classify the sample prepositions in order to see the general view of the prepositional category as a whole, instead of one of individual prepositions or of their subsets.
Data Selection
The high frequency of the prepositions is well illustrated in the fact that about eight of the top twenty high frequency items in English are prepositions. Furthermore, about 20 prepositions, accounting for the majority of the prepositions actively used in Modern English, belong to the top 100 high frequency items, exhibiting a high level of semantic polysemy. There are various sources that indicate the frequency ranking of English words. Due to the fact that lexicographers have differing views and criteria in determining the grammatical categories, there are variations among sources.
Some modifications have been made to reconcile the discrepancies among these major sources. The items analyzed in the present study are as listed in the order of their respective frequency in prepositional uses.
1. of 2. in 3. to 4. for 5. With 6. on 7. by 8. at 9. from 10. Into 11.about 12. than 13. after 14. like 15. Between 16. over 17. through 18. without 19. under 20. against
Selecting research items based on frequency is well justified by the truism
that the linguistic system is affected and formed by uses, as is well articulated in the
usage-based on the above given samples of most used English prepositions.
Therefore, highly frequent prepositions should carry grammatical importance in
English, and in fact, based on the calculations of the Johansson and Hofland [9,234].
Rhee shows [5,56] cases of antonymic semantic change which seems to have
resulted from variations of frame of focus (FFV) on source schemas.
For example, English out of means association in certain cases whereas in other
cases it means separation.
a. It was out of my intention. : with intention; intentionally
b. I asked out of curiosity. : with curiosity
c. His behavior was out of decorum. : without decorum; rudely
d. Fish cannot live out of water. : without water; outside the water
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e. We are out of milk. : without milk
This kind of antonymic contrast is produced by changing the frame of focus on the source schema. Identifying the lexical sources of each of the 20 prepositions under investigation is not as straightforwardly successful as it would seem, because many of them are old grams and already appear with prepositional semantics from the earliest extant data. From what is available, their lexical sources are as follows:
a. No identifiable lexical sources
of, in, to, with, on, by, at, from, into, than, over, through,under
b. Spatial nouns
for: 'front' about 'exterior' after: 'posterior' without 'exterior'
c. Others
like: 'body' between: 'two' against: 'direct/straight'
The above samples show an interesting aspect with reference to source transparency. This strongly suggests that these higher frequency items, as compared to the other relatively lower frequency items, have undergone more erosive grammaticalization processes, and may be historically older. Considering that the higher frequency prepositions are phonologically shorter. A look into the historical source meaning shows the following:
a. location
b. motion
c. relation
d. time
e. others
in, for, by, about, after, between, over, under, of, to, from, into, through , against, with, on, at, without, than.
For dynamic characterization of Modern English prepositions it is also worthwhile to compare the historical source meanings, i.e. the primary meaning in the oldest attested data, with the current, primary, meanings, which may shed light on the nature of diachronic change with long
temporal distance. Taking into account the oldest meanings, including the grammaticalised prepositional meanings, the changes of the individual preposition are as the characterization
a. antonymic contrast
of: separation> connection/ association
with: opposition> collaboration/ association
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b. metonomy
to: arrival/reaching> direction from: forwardness> point of departure about: vicinity of outer surface> vicinity
c. subjectification for: front > benefaction by: side > agency
than: sequential posterity> suppression without opposition at outside> absence against straight direction > opposition
d. narrowing
between: area next to two> intervening space of two on: any point in contact> superior point in contact
e. generalization
like: body (identicalness) > similarity
f.metaphor
after: posterior location > later time
g. no substantial change at: contact
into: to interior location over: superior location through: moving within and passing under: inferior location
In conclusion, the above illustrated all the characterization of English prepositions reveals two interesting aspects. The first is that the two high frequency prepositions were developed into highly contrastive meanings, even to a point of antonym, i.e. from separation to connection in case of, and from opposition to collaboration or association. Another one is that contrary to the common expectation that metaphor would be one of the most commonly found semantic change pattern, there is very few, in fact, only one, instance that may clearly qualify for such characterization. Hopefully, in near decades, particular scientific research on studying prepositions widely in broader field will be conducted by younger, enthusiastic linguists .
REFERENCES:
1. Abney, S. The English Noun Phrase in Its Sentential Aspects.-London:1987 ,pp21-22.
CONCLUSION.
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2. Barcelona A. Metonymy in cognitive linguistics: An analysis and a few modest proposals.- Amsterdam; 2003, pp. 223-255.
3. Barlow, M. and S. Kemmer. Usage Based Models of Language,- Stanford;2000, pp56-57.
4. Beitel, D. A., Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., and P. Sanders. The embodied approach to the polysemy of the spatial preposition on. - Amsterdam; 2001, pp.
5. Bennett, D. Spatial and Temporal Uses of English Prepositions:
An Essay in Stratificational Semantics.- London; Cambridge: Harvard University Press; 1975,pp 234-235.
6. Bowden F. Behind the Preposition: Grammaticalisation of Locatives in Oceanic Languages. -Canberra: Australian National University Printing Service; 2005, pp45-46.
7. Bybee, L, R. Perkins, and W. Pagliuca. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago and London.- The University of Chicago Press;1974,pp 67-68.
8. Cadiot, P. Schematics and motifs in the semantics of prepositions.- Berlin;2001,pp
241-260.
43-46.
