Other spatial prepositions
Other basic spatial prepositions include over, under, up and down. Over is used in several ways:
(a) A picture hangs over the fireplace.
(b) A helicopter flew over our heads.
(c) They live over a sweet-shop.
(d) He wore a raincoat over his suit.
(e) The lake is just over the hill.
(f) They sprayed paint all over the wall.
(g) The horse jumped over the fence.
(h) I fell over a stone and broke my leg.
In (a) and (b), one entity is higher than the other, with a space between, the difference being that (a) is static location (b) involves motion. The notion of ‘higher’ is still clear in (c) but less clear in (d) where, in addition, ‘space’ is reduced to the meaning of ‘on top of’. In (e), over implies location at the end of a path. One has to go over the hill to reach the lake. In (f) all over is ‘pervasive’ or ‘covering’, whereas (g) signals a movement of going up higher than an obstacle and down again on the other side, and (h) moving from an upright to a non-upright position. (Compare fall over as an intransitive phrasal verb with an adverbial particle: The lamp fell over and broke.)
Under, meaning vertically below, but with some intervening space, is the converse of over. It can function with verbs of location and motion, and the distance may be greatly reduced:
There’s a rug under the table; a bench under the tree. (i.e. under the branches of the tree!)
I pushed the letter under the door.
He’s wearing a T-shirt under his sweater. (conversely, a sweater over his T-shirt)
Above and below are similar to over and under, but absolute verticality is not a requirement:
The castle stands above the town; below the castle there is a river.
Up and down indicate a higher or lower position respectively, as in (a), or motion towards that position, as (b). Like under, they can imply the path taken to the higher or lower location, as with (b):
(a) There’s a pub just up/down the road.
(b) We had to walk up/down three flights of stairs.
Up and down are, however, more commonly used as adverb particles in phrasal and phrasal-prepositional verbs, such as If you take it up, I’ll bring it down.
Round/around express circular movement along a path in She danced around the bonfire, but circular position on a path in The children sat round the teacher (though prob ably the circle was not a full one). In the sentence They drove furiously round the race track, the track was probably irregularly curved, not circular. Sometimes the meaning is indeterminate movement in different directions within an area, as in We walked for hours round the streets looking for a cheap hotel. At other times, the movement may be neither circular nor along a clear path, but varied and indeterminate in a volume of space (e.g. The bees swarmed around us.) These differences may be regarded as different senses of the general meaning of ‘circularity’.
By, beside, at my side, next to, in front of, behind (AmE in back of), on the left, on the right, facing, opposite (AmE across from) all express degrees of proximity. They correspond to the physical orientation of our bodies, and are extended to certain objects such as cars and houses which have a front, a back and sides.
By has also the meanings of agency (a novel by Tolstoy) and means (by train, by bus, by air).
Between and among express relative position, referring to two entities, or more than two, respectively.
