The very difficulty of defining in/on/at for times and places
suggests to me that it's similar to the noun gender problem,
in that even if cognitivists can formulate a cognitive
rationale, it's sufficiently elusive that it's likely many
individual speakers don't discover it. Instead, there
must be grammatical rules for locative phrases that simply
stipulate for a given X, whether things are at X, on X or
in X.
--And.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dylan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 4:35 PM
Subject: [WG] Set in/on/at ...
Hi all,
I'm helping a friend's daughter to improve her essay writing and I have
stumbled on a problem with the complementation of SET (as in, this
novel is set in/on/at somewhere/somewhen.) I have explained that IN is
used for time, towns, provences, countries, etc. and ON for ships etc.
but I'm having trouble explaining the IN/ON distinction for RANCH. She
wrote "Of Mice and Men is set in a ranch", and I can't find a
relatively straightforward as to why it is ON. Any suggestions would be
useful, and, yes, I know it's far from simple...
TIA
Dylan
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
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