Humanising Language Teaching
Year 1; Issue 3; May 1999

Seth Lindstromberg, 1997.
John Benjamins Publishing Co.
ISBN 90 272 2167 7 (Paperback)
309 pp., including indexes

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This book was written for...

• Native and non-native speaking teachers of English
• Advanced students of English (especially at university)
• Translators, materials writers and lexicographers
• All frequent users of English desiring to improve the accuracy of their speech, writing and understanding.
• Creative writers.

EPE sets out to explain what English prepositions and directional adverbs mean and why they are used in the ways that they are. It is EPE's explanatory nature that makes it a unique resource and a vast improvement over the treatment of prepositions in grammar handbooks and dictionaries. The explanations are liberally supported by simple icons and drawings to an exceptional degree.

It describes and explains both British and North American usage (which, in fact, differ hardly at all in prepositional repertoire and semantics.)

Overview of contents

Chapters One and Two, which have been especially praised by reviewers and other readers, introduce and clarify important topics including:

• The grammar of prepositions
• Types and natural families of prepositions
• Similarities between prepositions, directional adverbs and particles
• Metaphorical extension of meaning
• Depictable vs non-depictable meaning
• Collocations and dependent prepositions
• Prototypical vs secondary meanings
• Guessable vs idiomatic uses of prepositions
• Phrasal verbs
• Perfective phrasal verbs

Chapters 3-21 of EPE cover all the prepositions and directional adverbs commonly used in Modern English. Here, there are two basic approaches to characterize the meanings of prepositions:

• First of all each preposition is dealt with individually so as to make its basic meaning(s) reasonably clear.

• Secondly, EPE shows how each preposition contrasts in meaning and usage with other prepositions so that the reader discovers not only when a preposition can be used but also when it cannot be used and why. Additionally, the reader discovers how meaning changes according to choice of preposition.

Chapter 22 examines the semantics of prepositions/directional adverbs in phrasal verbs.

Chapter 23 summarizes and extends all foregoing discussion of the role played by prepositions in expressing and shaping several dozen non-spatial/non-spatial notions such as 'cause' and 'continuation'. This is a chapter which many readers have found especially revelatory.

Pages 291-309 comprise...

• An annotated bibliography

• A glossary and index of terms

• An index of prepositions and features of language (e.g., 'infinitives')

  This copious and thorough index makes it possible, for instance, to find where past is compared to and contrasted with around, beyond and by.

• An index of abstract notions.

  This index points the reader to, for example, every section where prepositional expressions of 'target' are discussed (e.g., throw at vs throw to/on/against).

A sample explanation

(from Chapter One, Introduction, page 5)

"Idiomaticity is a matter of degree, with completely idiomatic usages being comparatively rare. For example, people generally think there is no reason why we say:

come by car/train/plane/boat but come on foot

pay by check/credit card/direct debit but in cash...

But as usual, there is more here than meets the eye. A common use of by is to indicate 'means'. A means is something that comes between a cause and a result. So, we say on foot because walking means moving directly on the ground; there is no intervening means of transport. Similarly, because a cash payment is direct, we do not say pay by cash. Cash finishes the deal; no further transactions are necessary. No credit card or check mediates between the purchase and final settlement."