전치사 to의 다의성 연구

A Study on the Polysemy of the Preposition to

This paper aims to show that the various meanings are closely interwoven based on human cognitive mechanisms such as image schemata, metaphors and focal adjustments. Traditionally, the word ‘to’ has been treated as a case of homonymy, and ‘to’ as a preposition is regarded as having nothing to do with ‘to’ as an infinitival marker. In this paper, however, it is argued that the meanings of the infinitival ‘to’ are intimately linked to the meanings of the prepositional ‘to.’ The two types of meanings are commonly founded on an image-schematic pattern, called a ‘PATH’ schema. This means that ‘to’ belongs to a case of polysemy, not homonymy. The PATH schema is composed of three parts, a starting point, an end point or destination, and a continuous series of points an entity moves or traces along. The protoypical (or central) senses of ‘to’ are elaborated on a physical space. The other senses do not contain a physical movement on a spatial domain, but they are felt to any relation with the PATH schema. The schema underlies all the senses of ‘to,’ whether it is used as a preposition or as a grammatical marker. The schema is elaborated on various domains like time, visual perception or cognition, communication, state, through a cognitive mechanism named subjectification and various metaphors such as STATES ARE LOCATIONS, TIME IS SPACE, CHANGE IS MOVEMENT, and VISION IS A MOVABLE THING.