Cover not available

Article published In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics
Vol. 24:1 (2026) ► pp.134–172

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB

Metaphorical and non-metaphorical meaning from spatial relations

ORCiD logo with link | Umeå University
ORCiD logo with link | Umeå University
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Umeå University.

Published online: 6 June 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00186.fal
Abstract
Speakers regularly use their experiences of spatial relations to construe linguistic meaning in metaphorical and non-metaphorical ways. Still, we have yet to identify the meaning-bearing functions that different spatial relations commonly serve. This paper focuses on into relations. Using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, we apply an Embodied Scenes approach to identify the categories of concepts that are regularly construed with ‘into relations’
and the actions that are commonly involved. More generally, we aim to show how spatial metaphors can be systematically studied by investigating the collocates of prepositions and prepositional constructions.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Research on spatial constructions
  • 3.Method and materials
    • 3.1Collection and processing of data
  • 4.Analysis and results
  • 5.Concepts commonly construed as LMs of ‘into relations’
  • 6.‘Actions’ that are commonly part of scenes evoked by ‘into relations’
    • 6.1‘Actions’ evoked by general motion verbs
    • 6.2‘Actions’ evoked by more specific verbs
  • 7.Meanings evoked by into constructions
    • 7.1LMs that tend to be construed by non-metaphorical ‘into relations’
    • 7.2LMs commonly construed by metaphorical and non-metaphorical ‘into relations’
    • 7.3LMs that tend to be construed by metaphorical ‘into relations’
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (42)
References
Adıgüzel, M. F. (2020). Metaphoric conceptualization of love pain or suffering in Turkish songs through natural phenomena and natural disasters. Metaphor and Symbol, 35(1), 56–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ahlberg, D. K., Bischoff, H., Strozyk, J. V., Bryant, D., & Kaup, B. (2018). How do German bilingual schoolchildren process German prepositions? – A study on language-motor interactions. PloS One, 13(3), e0193349–e0193349. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baczkowska, A. (2011). Space, time and language: A cognitive analysis of English prepositions. Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimireza Wielkiego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59(1), 617–645. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beitel, D., Gibbs, R., & Sanders, P. (2001). The embodied approach to the polysemy of the spatial preposition on. In H. Cuyckens & B. E. Zawada (Eds.), Polysemy in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 241–260). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergen, B. K. (2012). Louder than words: The new science of how the mind makes meaning. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Björklund, J., & Johansson Falck, M. (2019). How spatial relations structure linguistic meaning. Proceedings of the 15th SweCog Conference (pp. 29–31). Skövde: University of Skövde.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brugman, C. (1981). The story of over. [Master’s thesis]. University of California, Berkeley.
Church, K. W., & Hanks, P. (1990). Word association norms, mutual information, and lexicography. Computational Linguistics, 16(1), 22–29.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, M. (2008–2019). COCA. Corpus of Contemporary American English.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. (2006). Embodiment and cognitive science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R., & Matlock, T. (2008). Metaphor, imagination, and simulation: Psycholinguistic evidence. In R. Gibbs, Jr. (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought (pp. 161–176). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gärdenfors, P. (2014). The Geometry of meaning: Semantics based on conceptual spaces. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Herskovits, A. (1986/2009). Language and spatial cognition: An interdisciplinary study of prepositions in English (Vol. 31). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hilpert, M. (2019). Construction grammar and its application to English (Second ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoffmann, T., & Trousdale, G. (2013). The Oxford handbook of construction grammar. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johansson Falck, M. (2017). Embodied motivations for abstract in and on constructions. In F. J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, A. Luzondo Oyón, & P. Pérez Sobriño (Eds.), Constructing families of constructions: Analytical perspectives and theoretical challenges (pp. 53–76). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2018). From ecological cognition to language: When and why do speakers use words metaphorically? Metaphor and Symbol, 33(2), 61–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). Lexico-encyclopedic conceptual (LEC) metaphors. In T. L. Fuyin (Ed.), Handbook of cognitive semantics. Amsterdam: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johansson Falck, M., & Gibbs, R. (2012). Embodied motivations for metaphorical meanings. Cognitive Linguistics, 23(2), 251–272. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johansson Falck, M., & Okonski, L. (2022). Procedure for identifying metaphorical scenes (PIMS): A Cognitive Linguistics approach to bridge theory and practice. Cognitive Semantics, 81, 294–322. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). Procedure for identifying metaphorical scenes (PIMS): The case of spatial and abstract relations. Metaphor and Symbol, 38(1), 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(in preparation). From concrete to abstract and back again.
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kennedy, G. (1991). Between and through: The company they keep and the functions they serve. In K. Aijmer, B. Altenberg & J. Svartvik (Eds.), English Corpus Linguistics: Studies in honour of Jan Svartvik (pp. 95–110). London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kessler, K., & Rutherford, H. (2010). The two forms of visuo-spatial perspective taking are differently embodied and subserve different spatial prepositions. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980/2008). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical prerequisites (Vol. 11). Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2002). Concept, image, and symbol: The cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindstromberg, S. (2010). English prepositions explained (Rev. ed.). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, D. (2013). Salience and construal in the use of synonymy: A study of two sets of near-synonymous nouns. Cognitive Linguistics, 24(1), 67–113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Okonski, L., & M. Johansson Falck. (manuscript accepted for publication). The effect of the embodied scenes approach to preposition learning with PrepApp. Cognitive Linguistic Studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Peña-Cervel, S. (2004). The image-schematic basis of the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 21, 127–158. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reddy, M. (1979/1993). The conduit metaphor: a case of frame conflict in our language about language. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, F. J., & Pérez-Hérnandez, L. (2011). The contemporary theory of metaphor: Myths, developments and challenges. Metaphor and Symbol, 26(3), 161–185. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Team, R. C. (2022). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Retrieved from [URL]
Tyler, A., & Evans, V. (2003). The semantics of English prepositions: Spatial scenes, embodied meaning, and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Webster, M. (Ed.) (2022). Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (Vols. 2006).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Winter, B. (2020). Statistics for linguists: An introduction using R. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Johansson Falck, Marlene & Lacey Okonski
2025. From spatial to abstract and back again. Metaphor and the Social World 15:2 ► pp. 218 ff. DOI logo
Okonski, Lacey & Marlene Johansson Falck
2025. The effect of the Embodied Scenes approach to preposition learning with PrepApp. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 12:1 ► pp. 70 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue