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Reviewed by:
  • English prepositions explained by Seth Lindstromberg
  • Stacy Johnson
English prepositions explained. By Seth Lindstromberg. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1998. Pp. vi, 309. cloth $83.00, paper $29.95.

This book was intended to be a useful resource for teachers, translators, coursebook writers, and English speakers generally, rather than a specialized book for linguists. Lindstromberg believes that many seemingly idiosyncratic English prepositions actually reflect a predictable system of meaning, and uses icons, etymology, definitions, and example sentences to support his claim in an easy to understand manner.

The book’s 23 chapters cover more than 70 prepositions. Each chapter begins with an overview or initial remarks. It is then broken into sections examining the prepositions’ relationships to place, direction, [End Page 384] metaphorical extensions, and time. The prepositions are often defined in relation to each other, as exemplified by the title of Ch. 5, ‘In vs. on & out; in vs. inside, within; in vs. on, during’. For prepositions expressing concrete physical relationships (as opposed to prepositions like of and for that don’t characterize a spatial relationship), L uses icons such as a circle with an arrow pointing away from it to represent from and a circle with an arrow pointing to it to represent to. In cases where two prepositions have similar meanings, L uses definitions and example sentences with paraphrases to explain the differences. For example, Ch. 3 addresses in vs. into. L defines in as stressing ‘ “resultant enclosure” without clear images of the preceding movement’, and into as giving ‘movement and result about equal emphasis’. He explains that ‘They jumped into the train’ can only mean jumping from outside the train (movement) to inside the train (result), while ‘They jumped in the train’ can mean jumping within the train (resultant enclosure) as well as jumping from outside to inside the train (29–30). The combination of example sentences and paraphrases works well to differentiate the nuances of prepositions with similar meanings.

In cases where prepositions are true idioms, L attempts to make them easier to learn and understand by showing how they relate to literal and extended meanings of prepositions. For instance, to explain the phrase make up, L claims up has a perfective meaning implying completeness, so make up means returning a relationship to its complete state (23–4). However, in some cases the explanations he constructs seem somewhat complicated. For example, for the phrase ‘Look who’s just turned up’, L postulates that ‘when something comes up toward our face, it becomes easier to see. And since being seen is one of the main ways in which existence is noticed, visibility suggests existence, and becoming visible suggests coming into existence’ (189–90). This explanation seems more complicated to learn and remember than simply memorizing the phrase as idiomatic.

Although this book would be a valuable reference tool for its intended audience (it contains a comprehensive index, an abbreviated glossary of terms that would be unfamiliar to a nonlinguist, and frequent cross-references), it lacks any analysis that reveals systematic relationships that would be of interest to linguists.

Stacy Johnson
University of Minnesota, Duluth
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