| This Cognitive-Linguistic study comprises three aspects:; 1. A corpus-based lexico-semantic analysis of (spatial) prepositions associated with the up-down and the front-back dimensions (above, over, up, under, underneath, beneath, below, down, behind, beyond, after, before & in front of). In Cognitive Linguistics these items are considered to be polysemous and conceived as radial categories or networks with a centre-periphery structure. The peripheral senses are extended from the central ones (or prototypes).; The spatial extensions from a central sense can systematically be motivated by reference to a limited number of 'image-schema transformations'.; The figurative extensions can systematically be motivated by reference to a limited number of 'metaphors we live by'.; 2. Analysis of metaphorization processes. Special attention is given to the figurative senses of the prepositions and hypotheses are put forward to account for their occurrence.; In this respect the distinction between metaphor and metonymy is reconsidered. It is argued that the boundaries between metaphor and metonymy are fuzzy and that the two are most appropriately conceived as complementary cognitive processes.; The nature of so-called 'imageable' idioms is specifically significant in this context.; 3. Contrastive observations to support (a modified version) of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. Abstract thought is essentially metaphorical. Hence, the conventional metaphors of a community may--to some extent--determine the conventional patterns of thought of that community. In that context, a British (L.O.B.) and an American (Brown) corpus are compared with respect to the metaphors used to conceive particular abstract relations. For a number of abstract relations the two corpora reveal different preferences as to the dimension (up-down or front-back) used to conceive of them. |
