PERCEPTION OF SPACE AND THE FUNCTION OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PREPOSITIONS

One of the most difficult problems a student of English as a second language faces is the understanding of the functions and the usages of English prepositions. This is because English speakers, including teachers, are unable to offer any logical explanation, or clear conceptual framework for their occurrence or usage. While it is known that locative prepositions represent spatial or temporal relationships of objects in space, no fruitful study seems to have been made regarding these relationships, The most logical approach to the study of locative prepositions is to study how man perceives space and its properties. For the study of the relationships between the prepositions ‘at’, to, ‘on’ and ‘in’, the geometer's concepts of ‘point’, ‘line’, ‘surface’ and ‘solids’ are analyzed and applied. Further, a philosophical and mathematical logic, and a study of the nature of human perception, are presented in order to derive the psychological meanings which underlie these prepositions. The author concludes, after examination and analysis of various of their occurrences, that these prepositions are logically connected and their functions and meanings are comprehensible from the psycho-physiological experiences of man in space.