Chongwon Park (University of Minnesota, Duluth). 2009. The Frames and Semantic Network of the English Particle to . Language Information. Volume 10. 90-134.
This paper deals with the polysemic property of the English spatial particle to from a cognitive linguistics perspective. To account for the representation of multiple meanings associated with the single lexical item to , it is proposed that the various meanings of to are systematically related within the semantic network, and the various meanings are all derived from one spatial proto-scene. Based on the methodology put forth by Tyler and Evans (2003), the proto-scene of to is identified as "expressing motion directed towards." The proposed proto-scene is used to identify distinctive senses of to based on data gathered from various sources. After fully developing the semantic network for to , the relationship between the meaning of to and the morpho-syntactic expressions of to -constructions is illustrated within a frame semantic approach. Specifically, the semantic information projected by to is incorporated in the frame structures in the recent Construction Grammar (CxG) notations.
Keywords: cognitive linguistics, frame semantics, semantic network, spatial particle, proto-scene, distinctive meanings, Construction Grammar (CxG)