Spatial Cognition and the Semantics of Prepositions in English, Polish and Russian

‫-‬Sose say that knowledge it toaething tb it you never hive.Some say that knowledge it somethin( sitting in your lap. 1 a u t t admit.Just when I think Г а king.Just vhen I think everything's toin great.... 1 just begin.*-Kate Bush.‫-‬Sat in Your Lap* This work represents a somewhat revised version of the doctoral dissertation I completed in the Department of Slavic Languages at Brown University in May.1988.I chose the topic for my dissertation at a point ▼hen I had studied both Russian and Polish for a number of years.In many cases, as students of Slavic languages know,knowledge of one Slavic language can be very helpful in learning a second one.Other times, however, the apparently arbitrary differences in the usage of constructions that seem so similar in the two languages can be very frustrating.A case in point is the use of cognate prepositions in the different Slavic languages.I decided to study the seman‫-‬ tics of certain prepositions to see if there is any way to discern whether the differences are principled in any way, or w hether they are in fact arbitrary.If the cognate prepositions do still have the same meanings, why do such differences in usage arise in lhe different Slavic languages?This led me to also study the use of prepositions in English which serve as translation equivalents of those in Slavic, and to question how we select one preposition over another in a given context: T hen does one say a duck is i a or од the water?After reaiizing that the physical situation in the real world alone does not provide the answer to this question.I was relieved to come across the cognitive approach to semantics in the book $ e a * ú ű c s * a d C o g n itìo o (Jackendoff: 1983).This changed the theoretical approach of my dissertation.The exposition of my analysis was also influenced to a large degree by Herskovits (1982Herskovits ( .1986)).With the current blossoming of cognitive semantics, it seems new works on the topic are appearing at an overwhelming pace.Some that