English Prepositions Explained

Author
Seth Lindstromberg | Hilderstone College, UK
HardboundReplaced by new edition
ISBN 9789027221711 (Eur)
ISBN 9781556195259 (USA)
 
PaperbackReplaced by new edition
ISBN 9789027221728 (Eur)
ISBN 9781556195266 (USA)
English Prepositions Explained has been written both for non-native and native speakers of English and is intended for: teachers of English; translators; materials writers; advanced students of English; frequent users of English generally.
English Prepositions Explained furnishes information about English prepositions that is available in no other book currently in print. EPE both complements and is complemented by The BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations, which lists common collocations (including prepositional collocations) in a fashion that makes them readily locatable.
Like a grammar handbook, EPE describes how prepositions and directional adverbs are used. Its main work, however, consists in providing answers to the following questions: What meanings does each preposition have?; How are a preposition’s different meanings related?; Which meaning(s) underlie this or that usage?; Which usages are true idioms and which express systematic meaning?; What are the major semantic families of prepositions?; Where are the boundaries in meaning between the prepositions within each family?; When various prepositions are usable in the same context, what different meaning or nuance does each contribute and why?; What is the role of metaphor in the English system of prepositions?; What is a phrasal verb and to what extent do they reflect systematic meanings?
Explanations are liberally supported with iconic/pictorial illustration and examples of usage.
It is this explanatory, rather than merely descriptive, approach which makes EPE a unique resource for creative writing. Covering more than seventy, mostly spatial and temporal, prepositions, it presents a picture of remarkable systematicity.
Among EPE’s twenty-three chapters are: an overview of the grammar and semantics of prepositions (of place, path and time) and of directional adverbs; Nineteen chapters on families of prepositions; a chapter on phrasal verbs; a summary of key abstract notions expressed by prepositions.
EPE is fully indexed and includes a glossary of terms and an annotated bibliography.
[Not in series, 88] 1998.  xii, 309 pp.
Publishing status: Obsolete
Table of Contents
“Lindstromberg has explained English prepositions to me. This really is an interesting and well-written book and very useful [...].”
“The book really does give unified, coherent explanations of the uses of prepositions, and shows that these uses are mostly less ‘quirky’ than is usually believed. [...] A unique book, and essential reading for teachers and advanced learners.”
English Prepositions Explained is a very honest and practical book which achieves what it sets out to do without any pretensions to solving all the problems in the field of prepositional usage in English. [...] For someone like myself who has taught ESL, reading this book is like having someone fit the pieces of a puzzle together before your eyes.”
“A very fine piece of work that is going to do us all a lot of good.”
Cited by

Cited by 33 other publications

Alhammad, Reham
2023. The Acquisition of the English Spatial Prepositions: in, on, and at by Saudi EFL Students. <i>WORD</i> 69:2  pp. 175 ff. DOI logo
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2002. Éléments d'une critique de la notion de préposition spatiale. Syntaxe & Sémantique N° 3:1  pp. 117 ff. DOI logo
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2016. Cognitive Linguistics and Its Applications to Second Language Teaching. In Language Awareness and Multilingualism,  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
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2017. Cognitive Linguistics and Its Applications to Second Language Teaching. In Language Awareness and Multilingualism,  pp. 55 ff. DOI logo
Hamawand, Zeki
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HANAZAKI, MIKI M.
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Johansson Falck, Marlene
2014. Temporal prepositions explained. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 1:2  pp. 271 ff. DOI logo
Kokorniak, Iwona
2021. An aspectual contour of phrasal verb constructions with English think . Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 57:1  pp. 165 ff. DOI logo
Littlemore, Jeannette & Graham Low
2006. Metaphoric Competence, Second Language Learning, and Communicative Language Ability. Applied Linguistics 27:2  pp. 268 ff. DOI logo
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2016. Polysemy and the Semantic-pragmatic Interface: The Case ofUpin a Context-based Model. Intercultural Pragmatics 13:4  pp. 563 ff. DOI logo
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Malinier, Yves-Bernard
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2007. A Semantic Analysis of Universal and Idiosyncratic Features of Induced Motion Verbs: From the Perspective of Language Typology. Journal of Universal Language 8:1  pp. 23 ff. DOI logo
Mori, Souma
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Pan, Molly Xie & Guangwei Hu
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2019. Chapter 5. Linguistic metaphor identification in Dutch. In Metaphor Identification in Multiple Languages [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 22],  pp. 92 ff. DOI logo
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[no author supplied]

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Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CF/2AB: Linguistics/English

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  97039938 | Marc record