UNIT 17.

THE EXPRESSION OF PLACE, DIRECTION AND

DISTANCE.

The topic I have selected is number 17, entitled The expression of place, direction and
distance., which comprises the notions of how to express these grammar points in
English, the didactic implications, a final conclusion and the bibliography.

The unit chosen becomes absolutely indispensable within the curriculum of Foreign
Language (FL), and it complies with the applicable legal framework within this
transition period, in which the Organic Law LOMLOE 3/2020, December 29th, is
applied. Therefore, the essence of this ongoing paper, connected to the grammatical
block of contents, reinforces the curricular contents set up for FL as stated in RD
217/2022 for the 1st and 3rd year of Compulsory Secondary Education (CSE), RD
1105/2015 for the 2nd and 4th year of CSE, and 243/2022 for Baccalaureate, more
specifically in the stage objective that promotes the need to understand and express
oneself fluently and correctly in one or more languages. Then, it is undeniable that for
an ESL teacher, the richness of subject matters this unit involves is priceless, especially
if we give account for the multiple communicative strategies students need to master
before becoming efficient in English.

Generally speaking, the categories of place, direction and distance are expressed by
means of prepositions; therefore, this word will play a leading role in our analysis. In
order to provide a complete explanation of this topic, it is time for us to deal with the
expression of spatial reference which, as we have already mentioned, will be examined
through the category of prepositions. According to Greenbaum and Quirk (1990), they
belong to the closed class items which first, are invariable and second, connect two units
in a sentence, specifying a relationship between them. In fact, prepositions denoting
spatial reference may be represented by means of other categories. For instance, the
answer to Where is the book? could be: adjunct (On the shelf would be the best place),
disjunct (From my point of view, it would be placed on the shelf), or linked as
complement to other closed categories, such as verbs (I put it on the shelf), prepositional
verbs (I am looking for the book), adjectives (It is funny for reading it) or even
infinitives (He took the book to read it).

The term spatial reference, therefore, may provide details about:

 1. Position, direction and distance with prepositions such as at, on or in.
2. Lines of passage: across, along, over.
3. Surface: on, through, onto.
4. Area: inside, outside, out.
5. Volume: through, under, behind.
6. Direction: from, towards.
7. Movement: through, pass, across.

Most of these details about an action are either spatial or figuratively derived from
notions of physical space, which often overlap different semantic ideas.

The aforementioned notions will lead to the study of the expression of place, related to
simple position. We can distinguish three types of prepositions depending on the
dimensional properties of the location concerned:

1. Point  AT: this preposition signals a dimensionless location, a mere point in

relation to which the position of an element can be indicated. For example, John
stood at the door.
2. Line or surface  ON: the place is thought of in terms of length. Apart from on,
there are other possible prepositions such as onto, off, across, over or along, to
name but a few. For instance, The shop is across the road. On the other hand,
when on refers to a surface, we can highlight across, off, over or through, among
others, as in I saw her through the window.
3. Area or volume  IN: this preposition can be used to describe the surface of an
area that is enclosed or bordered. For example, She walked in the park.
Regarding volume, we can also use into, out of, through, inside or outside, such
as in He was inside the building when the accident happened. Moreover,
prepositions may express the relative position of two objects or groups of
objects. Above, over, on top of, under, underneath, beneath and below express
position vertically, whereas in front of, before, behind and after represent it
horizontally. Let’s see some examples: Keep this blanket over you or The castle
stands on a hill above the valley.

There are some cases in which we may find overlapped prepositions:

1) AT / IN: regarding these two prepositions, the differentiation is perceptual rather

than grammatical. With very large cities, continents, countries, provinces or
 other areas, we normally use in, whereas to refer to small areas such as streets,
squares…, we prefer at. For example, He works in Madrid vs. I met her in
Madrid.
2) AT / ON: in this case, the preposition at takes the place of to when the object
acts as a target, as in He threw the stone at me (he was trying to hurt me) vs. He
threw the stone to me (so that I could catch it).
3) ON / IN: the difference is that on refers to surface and in, to volume. For
instance, The child is on the grass (short grass) vs. The child is in the grass (long
grass).

Apart from the aforementioned simple prepositions, some others can express the relative
positions of two objects or groups of objects. As can be seen from the following

diagram, above/below, over/under, on top of/underneath and beneath express relative

position in a vertical direction, whereas behind/in front of express it in a horizontal
direction. In addition, the prepositions by and behind, meaning “at the side of”, are
generally used to point out the proximity of one object to another.

It will be noticed that some of these prepositions work as converse opposites, such as in
front of and behind, or above and below. However, some distinctions should be made:

 Over and under are place prepositions, roughly synonyms with above and below
respectively. The main differences are that over and under tend to indicate a
direct vertical relationship and also a spatial proximity, while above and below
indicate “on a higher/lower level than”. For example, The castle stands on a hill
above (rather than over) the valley or The doctor and the policeman were
leaning over (rather than above) the body.
  Underneath and beneath are less common substitutes for under. In fact, beneath
is more formal and sometimes used for abstract meanings, as in She married
beneath her, whereas underneath, like on top of, generally indicates a
contiguous relationship.
 Between usually relates an object to two other objects. In addition, it can make
reference to more than two as long as we have a definite number in mind, or if
we are referring to objects in a linear sense.
 Among relates to more than two objects.
 Opposite, which means “facing”, refers to things or people who are on the other
side, one in front of the other.
 Finally, (a)round refers to surrounding position or motion.

Apart from the aforementioned relations, we also find other place relations:

1. Motion and passage: we can distinguish four prepositions:

a) On  treat the grass as a surface (short grass).
b) Across  treat the grass as a surface (short grass).
c) In  treat the grass as having volume (long grass).
d) Through  treat the grass as having volume (long grass).
2. Movement and direction: these are expressed with up, down, along, across and
(a)round. They are used with reference to an axis. Compare the diagram:

up along
vertical axis
down across
horizontal axis

Let’s see some examples: They walked up / down the hill, The Earth moves
around the Sun or She ran along / across the street.

In addition, the preposition towards indicates both real and implied motion, with
the idea of “in the direction of”, for instance, We walked towards the old
farmhouse.

3. Repeated motion can be expressed by linking two prepositions with ‘and’: The
police searched up and down the street.
 4. Orientation: most prepositions can be used in a static sense of orientation. This
idea is clearly expressed with beyond (I could clearly see the city beyond the
lake). Similarly, we may use across, through or past, among others. For
example, I can see the house through the trees.
5. Resultative meaning: when combined with the verb ‘to be’, all prepositions have
a static resultative meaning, indicating as well the state of having reached a
destination. For instance, We were finally out of the forest.
6. Pervasive meaning: throughout is the only preposition whose primary meaning
is pervasive: The radiation spread throughout the unprotected walls. Another
preposition is over combined with ‘all’, as in These files are all over the floor.
7. Abstract place meaning: many prepositions are used in more abstract senses,
which have a metaphorical relation. Some prepositions are:
a) In / Out of (condition or inclusion): You are in danger.
b) Above / Below / Beneath (level): His grades are below average.
c) Over / Under (power, surveillance): Manchester City are moving up the
table.
d) From / To (giving and receiving): This gift is from Jane to Harry.
e) Between / Along (relations between two or more people): They are always
arguing among themselves.
f) Past / Beyond (excess): He’s beyond control.
8. To indicate distance, we find noun phrases modifying a verb of motion, as in He
drove a long way. They can also precede and modify an adverbial of place, for
instance, They live a long way away.

Finally, we should take into account that one single preposition, in this case, over, can
have 7 different uses:

Position  There are some grey clouds over the city.

Destination  They threw a blanket over her.
Passage  She climbed over the fence.
Orientation  The police station is over the road.
Resultative  At last, we were over the crest of the hill.
Pervasive (static)  The children left their toys all over the room.
Pervasive (motion)  They splashed water all over me.
Having covered these notions, it is time for us to move to the following section of this
paper: adverbs and noun phrases as place adjuncts. It is important to notice that the
majority of place adjuncts are prepositional phrases, but clauses, adverb phrases and
noun phrases are also commonly used. Some prepositional adverbs used to express both
position and direction are, to name but a few: above, anywhere, back, locally and there.
For example, I work at the factory over there. However, there are adverbs denoting
direction only, as aside, backwards, left, sideways and upwards, among others. One
example would be: All the books on the shelf are sideways.

When we have position and direction adjuncts in the same clause, the position one
normally follows the direction adjunct in final position. For example, The children are
running around upstairs. Nevertheless, the position adjunct may be placed initially to
avoid giving it end-focus: Upstairs, the children are running around. Simple
prepositional adverbs commonly used for position and direction are: above, along,
anywhere, around, away, back, below, by, down, east, elsewhere, everywhere, far, here,
home, in, locally, near, off, opposite, out, over, past, round, somewhere, there, through,
under, up, and within. On the other hand, those denoting direction only are: aside,
backwards, downwards, forwards, inwards, left, outwards, right, sideways, and
upwards.

Once the previous notions have been itemized, we should mention that we can find
some co-occurrence restrictions on place adjuncts, especially when both of them appear
coordinated in the same clause, for example, The children are running around upstairs.
Normally, the position adjuncts goes in initial position to avoid end-focus (Upstairs, the
children are running around). On the other hand, when we have two position adjuncts
or two direction adjuncts in the same clause, we establish a hierarchical relationship:

 Two position adjuncts can co-occur: In Manchester, most people work in large
companies.
 Two direction adjuncts: He kept going from Paris to NYC.
 Two direction adjuncts juxtaposed: in this case, they follow the events
described, so the earlier one goes in initial position (He walked down the
corridor into the classroom).
 Clauses of place are introduced by ‘where’ or ‘wherever’ : I know where they hid
the money.
  Non-finite verb-less clauses: Wherever seen, such people have been identified.

The above theoretical framework we have embedded our dissertation in would be

incomplete were it not for the didactic proposals we will define in the following section.
The various notions and aspects of the expression of place, direction and distance dealt
with in this study are relevant to the learning of a foreign language since they may lead
to several problems such as the incorrect use of prepositions, adverbs or even
constructions, especially because of the relevant and slight differences between them,
still problematic for Spanish students. In fact, a realization of how many words there are
in common between both languages can offer the learner “a bridge” to the new
language. Therefore, all the proposed activities to be performed in the classroom should
integrate this part of the English grammar, either with a writing task or by organising
units around different notions related to the expression of these grammatical points,
establishing a flipped classroom.

It is the task of the teacher to create understandable situations that will help develop in
the students the intuitive use of these expressions that every native speaker of English
possesses. In general terms, the expression of place by means of prepositions is
envisaged from earlier stages of ESO (simple descriptions of places, such as the
bathroom), up to higher stages of Bachillerato towards more complex descriptions, such
as asking directions or describing a city. Furthermore, by providing contextualized
examples, teachers are leading pupils to make their own conclusions about the use of
these formulations, promoting at the same time an improvement in their communication
with other students or even native speakers.

It is undeniable, after all the theory we have surveyed, that teaching all these concepts
poses a real challenge to both instructors and learners. As a key grammatical element,
the mastery of the expression of these notions lays the underground for effective
communication.

The bibliography I have used for the development of this topic is the following:

 Boyle, T. (2005). The Gremlins of Grammar. McGraw-Hill Education.

 Downing, A. & P. Locke. (2002). A University Course in English Grammar.
Routledge.
 Greenbaum, S. (2000). The Oxford Reference Grammar. Oxford University
Press.
 Greenbaum, S. & R. Quirk. (1990). A Student’s Grammar on the English
Language. Longman, London.
 Huddleston, R. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.
Cambridge University Press.
 Nelson, G. (2001). An Essential Grammar. Routledge.
 Organic Law 3/2020, December 29th, which amends Organic Law 2/2006, of
May 3, 2006, on Education. Official State Gazette, 340, December 30, 2020,
122868-122953.
 Organic Law 3/2020, December 29th, which amends Organic Law 2/2006, of
May 3, 2006, on Education. Official State Gazette, 340, December 30, 2020,
122868-122953.
 Quirk, R. (1972). A Grammar of Contemporary English. Longman, London.
 Zandvoort, E. W. (1977). A Handbook of English Grammar. Longman, London.