An overview of English spatial prepositions in’s equivalents in Vietnamese under cognitive semantic perspective

Abstract

Linguists, psychologists and philosophers have long observed the importance of space and spatial experience for both language and thought. There are numerous recent studies examining the nature of human saptio-physical experience and how human conceptualization of spatial relations is reflected in languages. In and its Indo-European cognates (particularly in Dutch, French and German) have been extensively studied (Hawkins, 1988; Quirk et al., 1985; Vandeloise, 1991, 1994). Despite having been so well studied, the present analysis represents methodologically motivated account for the range of polysemy associated with in. Moreover, the analysis of in will constitute a useful step in understanding the semantics associated with other spatial particles associated with bounded landmarks.