Cognitive Explorations into the Category Schema of ‘For’

Disparities exist in the way current linguistic research approaches prepositions, both in terms of definition and classification. Despite an abundance of publications containing analyses of prepositions, especially those in the English language, relatively little attention has been devoted to the preposition ‘for’, despite its high frequency of occurrence in English.

Carried out from a cognitive perspective, and with the aid of Langacker’s cognitive grammar methodology, this text provides evidence in support of the thesis that ‘for’ constitutes a category by itself, characterised by a complex semantic structure that comprises a variety of schemas sanctioning the uses of ‘for’ in the English language. As such, this book will primarily interest students and teachers that have an interest in cognitive linguistics.