Applying Cognitive Grammar to Pedagogical Grammar: The Case of “To”

In foreign language pedagogy, promoting learner’s insight means reducing the perceived arbitrariness of the foreign language system. The learner perceives something as arbitrary if he/she can see no reason why it should be as it is. For this reason, it is not enough to merely inform the learner that a particular element belongs to a given formal category and not to another. Rather, we need to explain to the learner why the foreign language should be as it is. This paper will apply cognitive grammar insights to grammatical instruction in foreign language pedagogy, searching for descriptively adequate, intuitively acceptable, and easily accessible formulations of the preposition “to.” Many cognitive linguists have argued that many of the multiple uses associated with a preposition are related in relatively straightforward, systematic ways. Their cognitive linguistic approaches have the potential to provide at least some pedagogical benefits for learners. However, even such cognitive linguists have assumed that the interpretation of the preposition is due to the preposition itself. This paper will go a step further and demonstrate that other elements which collocate with the preposition “to” bear on its interpretation in context on the basis of the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema. The cognitive linguistics approach on the basis of the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema has great potential in offering a more teachable account of the multiple interpretations assigned to the preposition “to,” and also illustrates how understanding of prepositional meanings can be presented to second language learners with a minimum of technical jargon or grammatical explanation. The language teachers, armed with the insights provided by this cognitive account, can provide more coherent, insightful explanations of the various meanings associated with the preposition “to,” and thus move beyond the instruction to simply commit the various