Three basic prepositions in French and in English : a comparison

Abstract

The spatial uses of the French prepositions à, dans and sur may be translated by either at, in, on or to, into, onto, depending on whether the landmark introduces the actual or the prospective position of the target. All static spatial French prepositions can bring in the actual position of the target as well as its prospective position. Instead of offering two meanings for these prepositions, I propose a general principle of anticipation that applies to the definition of these prepositions when the target is prospective. An adaptation of this principle applies to the spatial static English prepositions, with the exception of at, in and on. The prepositions into and onto are interpreted as compound words that elaborate the meaning of to. The prepositions dans and in mainly convey a relation of containment involving material entities. Such geographic entities as cities and countries, however, introduced by the French preposition of localization à, are preceded by in in English. This may be explained because the functions of localization and containment share certain properties : containers are ideal landmarks and some geographic entities have well-defined boundaries in which a target may be included.