Xref: utzoo sci.lang:4372 comp.cog-eng:1023
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!dogie.macc.wisc.edu!uwvax!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!pitt!cisunx!hirtle
From: hirtle@cisunx.UUCP (Steve  Hirtle)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Geographical uses of "in" and "on"
Keywords: spatial language, prepositions, metaphor
Message-ID: <17765@cisunx.UUCP>
Date: 25 Apr 89 21:40:43 GMT
References: <5434@cs.Buffalo.EDU>
Reply-To: hirtle@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Stephen Hirtle)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Sys
Lines: 46

In article <5434@cs.Buffalo.EDU> dmark@cs.Buffalo.EDU (David Mark) writes:
>In English, the spatial relation between a point and a geographic polygon is 
>"usually" expressed with the preposition "in".  This is consistent with the
>idea that the polygonal region is conceived of as a CONTAINER.  However, for
>some geographic polygons, English uses "on", which implies a PLATFORM
>image-schema.  So far, I cannot come up with any set of characteristics
>of the polygons that would indicate whether "in" or "on" is used.  

Michel Grimaud had an article in _Geolinguistics_ recently comparing
use of prepositions in French, British English, and American English
and he made some interesting observations and noted systematic 
differences.  For example, in American English, "in" is used
for larger political divisions, as "in Ireland," whereas "on" is used
for smaller units, as "on Staten Island."  There is also a consistency
in that we say "in a cornfield" and "walking through a cornfield",
but "on a battlefield" and "walking across a battlefield."  

As for the differences, he described how the three languages look
at street names relating it to the issue of containment.  In all three 
languages we talk of "in the alley," as alleys are considered containers, 
and "on the boulevard," as boulevards are considered surfaces.  But the
languages differ on whether "in" or "on" is used with intermediate
cases.  For example, Americans say "the man on the street" or "on
Wall Street," but in England "the man in the street" is considered
proper.  Metaphorical uses are also discussed.  Grimaud notes that 
"The house is on the ocean" is only proper in English, not in French.

Please note that this is my summarization of Grimaud's work; 
I do not know that he would agree with my interpretations.

I know I am not answering your query, but I wonder if you
might consider breaking the problem into distinct problems.  That
is, different "rules" (in a given language) might exist for different
classes of terms, be it political boundaries, metaphorical uses, or
something as small as roadway terms.  I did not see your earlier
postings or the replies, so if you could expand on the main points,
or email the earlier entries, I would be interested.

Stephen C. Hirtle
Department of Information Science
University of Pittsburgh

UUCP:     {pitt, decvax}!idis!sch
INTERNET: hirtle@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu
INTERNET: sch@idis.lis.pittsburgh.edu
BITNET:   HIRTLE@PITTVMS