A full-dress review of English preposition usage–2
Credit to Author: JOSE A. CARILLO| Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2019 16:54:10 +0000
Let’s continue our full-dress review of English preposition usage.
PREPOSITIONS OF MOTION AND DIRECTION
The prepositions “to,” “toward,” “in” and “into.” These four prepositions link to their object destination these verbs of movement — “move,” “go,” “transfer,” “walk,” “run,” “swim,” “ride,” “drive,” “fly” and “travel.” All except “transfer” can take both “to” and “toward.”
“To” conveys the idea of movement toward a specific destination, “toward” that of movement in a general direction that may not reach a specific destination:
“Please take me to the bus station.” (The speaker obligates the listener to take him to a specific place.)
“The speedboat headed toward the harbor.” (The speaker indicates only a movement in a general direction.)
The prepositions “into” and “in” are generally interchangeable when used with verbs of motion, but with notable exceptions: Use “in” (or “inside”) only when the preposition is the last word in the sentence or occurs right before an adverbial of time (“today,” “tomorrow”), of manner (“quickly,” “hurriedly”) or of frequency (“once,” “twice”).
Examples: “The woman went into the manager’s office.” “The woman went in.” “The tenants moved into the apartment yesterday.” “The tenants moved in hurriedly.” “The woman went in twice.”
“Into” can also be used as the last word in a question: “What sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into?” But “in” should be used if the question is in this form: “What sort of trouble are you in?”
“In/into” has two unique uses with the verb “move.” (1) Use “move in” when what follows is a clause indicating purpose or motive: “The hunters moved in for the kill.” “The soldiers moved in for the attack.” In such cases, “in” is part of the verb phrase, so “into” cannot be used. (2) Use “into” with “move” to convey the idea of a simple movement: “The firemen moved into the burning building.”
The prepositions of direction “to,” “onto” and “into.” They correspond to the common locational prepositions: “to” for “at,” “onto” for “on,” and “into” for “in.” Each is defined by the same space relations of point, line, surface or area as in the prepositions of location.
“To” signifies orientation toward a goal. If that goal is physical, “to” conveys the idea of movement in the direction of that goal: “The troops returned to their base.”
“Toward” means about the same thing as “to.” If the goal is not physical but an action, “to” simply puts the verb in the infinitive form to express a purpose: “She sings to earn extra money.” “She cut her hair to show her displeasure.”
As we know, “onto” and “into” are compounds formed by “to” with corresponding prepositions of location: (1) on + to = onto, to signify movement toward a surface, and (2) in + to = into, to signify movement inside a finite three-dimensional space or volume.
Since “on” and “in” already have a directional meaning, so they can freely be used instead of “onto” and “into”: “The cats fell on (onto) the floor.” “The whales washed up onto (on) the beach.” “The girl jumped into (in) the river.”
As a rule, the compound locational prepositions “onto” and “into” convey consummation of an action: “The boy fell onto [to] the ground.” “The sailor dived into [to] the pool.” The simple locational prepositions “on” and “in” indicate the subject’s end-position as a result of the action: “The boy is on the ground.” “The sailor is in the pool.”
The preposition “at” primarily works in two ways: (1) As marker for a verb of motion directed towards a point: “She arrived at the airport late.” “The marksman aimed at the hostage-taker with precision.” (2) As indicator of direction: “The man leaped at the thief to subdue him.” “She jumped at me without warning.”
(Next: A full-dress review of English preposition usage – 3)
Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com, and on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/jacarillo. Follow me at Twitter.com @J8Carillo. E-mail: j8carillo@yahoo.com.
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