Prototypical prepositions are [p en/of] (where the governor is the category) and [p en/as] (where the object is the category):
- [ex 001 "the state [p en/of Identity] Washington [as opposed to the city]"]
- [ex 002 "The liberal state [p en/of Identity] Washington has not been receptive to Trump’s message."]
- [ex 003 "[pspecial As en/as Identity] a liberal state, Washington has not been receptive to Trump’s message."]
- [ex 004 "I like Bob [p en/as Identity] a colleague. [but not as a friend]"]
- [ex 005 "What a gem [p en/of Identity] a restaurant! [exclamative idiom: both NPs are indefinite]"]
- [ex 006 "the problem/task/hassle [p en/of Identity] raising money"]
- [ex 007 "the age [p en/of Identity] eight"]
- [ex 008 "They did a great job [p en/of Identity] cleaning my windows."]
- [ss Topic--Identity], with a governing noun in the domain of communication or cognition:
- [ex 009 "the topic/issue/question [p en/of Topic--Identity] semantics"]
- [ex 010 "the idea [p en/of Topic--Identity] raising money"]
Something may be specified with a category in order to disambiguate it [exref 001 Identity], or to provide an interpretation or frame of reference with which that entity is to be considered.
In some cases, like [exref 009 Identity], the category is a <i>shell noun</i> ([Schmid, 2000](/bib/schmid_2000/)) requiring further specification.
Categorizations may be situational rather than permanent/definitional:
- [ex 011 "She appears [p en/as Identity] Ophelia in <i>Hamlet</i>."]
- [ex 012 "He is usually a bartender, but today he is working [p en/as Identity] a waiter."]
Paraphrase test: “(thing) IS (category) [in the context of the event]”:
“Washington is a liberal state”, “opening a new business is a hassle”, “She is Ophelia”, etc. Note that [p en/as]+category may attach syntactically to a verb, as in [exref 004 Identity] and [exref 011 Identity], rather than being governed by the item it describes.
If the object of the preposition is a property (as opposed to a category), the scene role is [ss Characteristic]:
- Adnominal: [ss Characteristic--Identity]
- [ex 013 "a car [p en/of Characteristic--Identity] high quality"]
- [ex 014 "a man [p en/of Characteristic--Identity] honor"]
- [ex 015 "a business [p en/of Characteristic--Identity] that sort [contrast with [ss Species]]"]
- Secondary predicate adjective: [ss Characteristic--Identity]
- [ex 016 "She described him [p en/as Characteristic--Identity] sad."]
- [ex 017 "He strikes me [p en/as Characteristic--Identity] sad."]
See also: [ss ComparisonRef]
<!--
Generalized from v1, where it was called <i>Instance</i> and restricted to the “(category) [p en/of] (thing)” formulation.
The relevant usages of [p en/as] were labeled <i>Attribute</i>.
-->