Analysis the Semantic Extension of Preposition'in'from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

摘要

English preposition is flexible word with various meaning and preposition"in"is a high-frequent word used widely in English expression. As we know, there are about 70％English sentences are metaphors, and preposition is used frequently as the backbone of metaphorical expression. Therefore, the preposition cognitive interpretation is an effective way to understand the se?mantic extension of preposition. This article mainly analysis the prototypical meaning and the image schema of preposition "in"and discusses the mapping process from the spatial domain to the other cognitive domain. Through analysis the metaphor seman?tic extension process, we might get a better understanding of it.