The present scheme emerged out of extensive descriptive work with corpus data. Given the abundance of rare preposition usages, this document does not claim to cover every possible role/function combination for English, let alone other languages. Below are the few categorical restrictions that seem warranted for English.
Participant and Configuration are intended only to organize subtrees of the hierarchy, and not to be used directly.
Content is not expected to apply to English prepositions or possessives as either role or function. It is included in the hierarchy for use by other languages.
For English prepositions and possessives, Experiencer, Stimulus, Originator, Recipient, SocialRel, Org, OrgMember, Ensemble, and QuantityValue can only serve as scene roles, not functions. Though scenes of perception, transfer, and interpersonal/organizational relationships are fundamental in language, they always seem to exploit construals from other domains (motion, causation, possession, and so forth). (They may be marked more canonically by other English constructions, or by adpositional and case constructions in other languages.)
For example, #001 is clearly Recipient at the scene level—Sam acquires possession of the box—but also fits the criteria for Goal because Sam is an endpoint of motion (and to frequently marks Goals that are not Recipients). #002 and #003 reflect Recipient↝Agent and Recipient↝Gestalt construals, respectively.
Give the box to Sam. (Recipient↝Goal) 001
the box received by Sam (Recipient↝Agent) 002
Sam's receipt of the box (Recipient↝Gestalt) 003
Though the Goal construal is arguably the most canonical expression of Recipient, there is no preposition with a primary meaning of Recipient independent of one of these other domains.
Additional constraints on functions arise in the context of specific constructions. For instance,
In the present scheme, there are no supersenses that are restricted to serving as functions.
Temporal prepositions never occur with a function of Locus, Path, or Extent.
Languages routinely borrow from spatial language to describe time, and spatial cognition may underlie temporal cognition (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, Núñez and Sweetser, 2006, Casasanto and Boroditsky, 2008). A liberal use of construal would treat arriving in the afternoon as Time↝Locus, sleeping through the night as Duration↝Path, running for 20 minutes as Duration↝Extent, and so forth. However, for simplicity and practicality, we elect not to annotate Locus, Path, or Extent construals on ordinary temporal adpositions. Thus:
Time↝Direction is possible, however, as are other atemporal functions:
Schedule the appointment for Monday. (Time↝Direction) 007
January of last year (Time↝Whole) 008
Will you attend Saturday's class? (Time↝Gestalt) 009
It took a year's work to finish the book. (Duration↝Gestalt) 010
Note that the above is qualified to ‘ordinary temporal adpositions’. When the first argument of a comparative construction is marked with as, the function is always Extent, even if the scene role is temporal. See Comparatives and Superlatives.
Ordinarily, if a construal holds between two (distinct) supersenses, these are from different branches of the hierarchy. In a few cases, however, one is the ancestor of the other.
Setting events or situations with a salient spatial metaphor are Circumstance↝Locus or Circumstance↝Path.
Fictive motion (the extension of a normally dynamic preposition to a static spatial scene) can warrant Locus↝Goal or Locus↝Source, as discussed under Locus.
Complete contents of containers are Characteristic↝Stuff.
Some s-genitives are annotated as Whole↝Gestalt: see Genitives/Possessives.
When an organization is framed via a genitive construction in relation to its members, Org↝Gestalt is used.
For amount/number/etc. + of + ITEM, QuantityItem↝Gestalt is used.
When a locative PP is coerced to a goal, as with put, Goal↝Locus is used.