A Cognitive Semantic Approach to Persian Spatial Prepositions, a Pedagogical Perspective, Case Study: Persian Preposition /d?r/

We will argue that the common practice in the literature of giving a long list of senses for spatial prepositions, implying that they are unrelated to one another is not adequate. The more adequate way is presenting a network of related senses based on a prototype. Also, speaking specifically about Persian preposition /d?r/, we will argue that the meanings of spatial prepositions arise as a consequence of our daily bodily experiences in the world and our conceptualization thereof. It is also shown that the cognitive semantic approach taken in this paper sheds more light on the semantic structure of spatial prepositions in general and /d?r/ in particular, a light which can be very useful in teaching prepositions.