Position

Abstract

This chapter discusses the prepositions that relate to position, which fall into four sets: vertical position, horizontal position, distance, and passage. It outlines prepositions in the vertical position that includes over, under, above, below, beneath, and underneath, while the horizontal position includes behind, ahead (-of), in-front(-of), back, forth, forward(s), and backward(s). Distance covers beyond, near(-to), close-to, and far-from and passage covers along, alongside, across, through, and throughout. The chapter demonstrates how the pairs of prepositions over/under and above/below that can be substituted one for the other in some circumstances. Both over and under have considerable metaphorical extensions from their basic spatial senses, noting that over features in some prepositional verbs and a couple of score phrasal verbs, whereas under is in a handful of phrasal verbs.