TRANSPOSITION OF SPACE INTO QUALITY OF ACTION/ENTITY BY SPATIAL PREPOSITIONS IN SERBIAN AND ENGLISH

Abstract

The subject of the research are Serbian prepositions such as na, u, preko and their English equivalents in, on, over, etc. which constitute prepositional phrases whose primary spatial sense develops into the abstract sense of quality. The aim was to determine whether the usage of different prepositions influences the conceptualisation of space and whether different conceptualisation affects the interpretation of the sense of quality.

The results have confirmed that similarities as well as differences in spatial prepositions influence the way the space is conceptualised in the examined languages. In many cases, the conceptualisation is the same, which is proved by the usage of the primary English equivalents of the Serbian prepositions, e.g. vladati iz senke – rule form the shadows, smejati se do suza – to laugh to tears, ići u grupama – to go in groups. On the other hand, the corpus has shown various different equivalents each of which has a specific meaning but does not necessarily imply different conceptualisation (e.g. naručiti klavir preko firme – book a travel through the company, utvrditi do detalja – examine in detail) as well as those which influence completely different conceptualization of space, such as that of bearing and containment (e.g. ubiti iz potaje – kill in secret, nositi na rukama – carry in one’s arms). These findings can also be useful in teaching Serbian as a foreign language because they can give the insight into the most frequent errors in the use of prepositions, which would provide a more useful framework for building a systematic approach to teaching Serbian prepositions and prepositional phrases.