Marginal prepositions in learner English

This paper illustrates the use of learner corpus data to inform language teaching. A comparative interlanguage analysis of a specific class of complex and marginal prepositions in a range of L1 German learner corpora is presented. The comparison shows that, in native English, prepositions in the semantic field of “reference” and “aboutness” are used in distinct structural and collocational environments, while the learner data shows a greater degree of interchangeability in use. Since the distribution of these prepositions in native English is more differentiated than might be suggested by the standard pedagogical reference works, implications for English language teaching are suggested.