A Cognitive-Semantic Study of the Spatial Preposition Fī (يِف) in the Quran

Abstract. The existing literature has examined the preposition fī (يِف) in the Quran from lexical syntactic perspective in strict spatio-geometric sense, but its abundant use with abstract concepts, emotions and states needs an elaborate approach to investigate its complex semantic functions. Therefore, this paper has taken a corpus based approach to investigate the functional semantic complexity of the preposition fī in the Quran from a cognitive perspective. The conceptual metaphor perspective holds that the sensorimotor neural structures define the use of spatial preposition in both spatio-geometric positions and abstract states. The linguistic data reveals that the container image schema is at work both in the literal and metaphoric use of spatial preposition fī. However, the preposition fī carries its own distinct semantic argument in each context and sometimes overrides the symmetry of container image schema. This paper recommends a broader perspective for a comprehensive analysis of spatial preposition fī and suggests further studies on its functional semantic complexity in the Quran.


Introduction
Prepositions are linguistic devices in the Arabic language which play a crucial role in meaning construction and inferences.These linguistic particles play the relational function in language.If the intended meaning of these particles is missed in their situated usage, it may result in erroneous comprehension of the Quranic discourse (al-Sayyuti 1982).Keeping in view the importance of prepositions in language and discourse, many Arabic linguists and Orientalists (al-Sayyuti 1982(al-Sayyuti , 1985;;Badawi, Carter and Gully 2013;Haywood and Nahmad 1962;Sibawayh 1988;Wright 2011) have extensively studied and categorised the prepositions in the Arabic language.The prepositions have been categorised either as explicit or implicit (al-Sayyuti 1985;Sibawayh 1988), separable or inseparable (Haywood and Nahmad 1962) and true prepositions or semi-prepositions (Badawi et al. 2013).However, Badawi et al. (2013) contend that even the true prepositions are often used with meanings of space and are termed as spatial prepositions.This means that the prepositions are polysemous in nature, and their meanings depend upon the context in which they are used (al-Sayyuti 1982;Nasser 2013).
Arabic grammarians unanimously agree that the true prepositions, such as min, fī and ʿalā are spatial in nature, and they function as adverbs of place and time (al-Sayyuti 1982(al-Sayyuti , 1985;;Badawi et al. 2013;Sibawayh 1988).However, they also hold that these prepositions are polysemous in nature, and their meanings depend upon the context in which they are used.Nasser (2013) demonstrates that every preposition has a primary sense but it can be extended to have diverse secondary senses in diverse contexts.According to Nasser (2013), the primary meaning of preposition fī is containment, but it has been used in seven secondary senses: causative sense, company sense, elevation sense, termination sense, measurement sense, putative sense and attachment sense.If scrutinised closely, Nasser (2013) has followed al- Sayyuti (1982) in deriving the polysemous meaning of the preposition fī.Al-Sayyuti (1982) holds that though the preposition fī carries the most basic sense of the adverbial of time and place, it has also been used in nine other senses which are maʿa (with), lam (for), ila (to), ʿalā (on, over), bessabab (due to, on account of, because of), min (from), ʿan (from), muqāyesat (comparison, measurement) and thawkīd (emphasis).Nasser (2013) has congregated lam and bessabab, separated the adverbials of time and place, and excluded the muqāyesat and thawkīd.Badawi et al. (2013) holds that prepositions have literal meanings, metaphorical meanings, and extended meanings of the literal meanings.This shows that such classification of the meanings of prepositions poses the problem of either extending it into many other senses, or restricting it to some senses.Moreover, if the view that the prepositions have primary meanings is upheld, then they must have roots, which they lack (see Ibn Fâris 1979).Prepositions are relational in nature, and they derive their meanings from their situated usage (Hasan and Abdullah 2009).Therefore, the lexical-syntactic approach fails to achieve unanimity on semantic classification of the preposition fī, except in its spatial nature.Al-Sayyuti (1982) and Ryding (2005) have analysed the spatial prepositions from a lexical-syntactic perspective and regard them as locative prepositions for space and time.Saeed (2014) has further divided the prepositions on the basis of lexical-syntactic features into true prepositions and semi-prepositions.His approach is based on the place P projection syntactic model of Svenonius (2010).This model decomposes the prepositional phrases into three semantic heads of Loc, Axpart and K. Saeed (2014) suggests modifications to the Loc and K heads of the model in its application to the Arabic language.The Loc head can be modified as PlaceRelP, because the prepositions in, on and at relate a figure to a specific space in the ground, while there is part-whole relationship between that specific space and the ground.Moreover, the K has possessive function which is null in the Arabic language.Accordingly, Saeed (2014) has demonstrated that the true prepositions can be lexicalised as Place Relators, while the semi-prepositions can either be Place Relators or Axpart.This approach mainly deals with strict spatio-geometric sense of the prepositions, and it cannot be adopted to conduct the semantic analysis of prepositions in abstract domains, or to analyse the idiosyncratic behaviour of the prepositions.
The investigation of the prepositions in previous literature either deals with their spatial nature or sense extension of the primary meanings of the prepositions, which, as argued, prepositions do not carry.The lexical-syntactic approaches can give neither a unanimous semantic classification of Arabic prepositions, nor can they account for the grounds of their usage in a spatio-geometric sense with nonspatial abstract concepts and mental states.The preposition fī is not only used in the strict spatio-geometric sense, but it is also used to give representational characters to abstract concepts, such as states or emotions.The cognitive approach offers a solution to the problems faced by the lexical-syntactic approaches.Cognitive semantic approach has been applied to investigate the language of the Quran in a number of studies (see al-Saggaf, Yasin and Abdullah 2014;Berrada 2006Berrada , 2007;;Libdeh 2012;Mohamed 2014;Sardaraz and Roslan 2016;Shokr 2006).These studies investigate different conceptual metaphor themes in the Quran, but they do not examine the conceptual aspects of spatial prepositions.Therefore, this paper explores the semantic functions of the spatial preposition fī from the cognitivesemantic perspective in the Quran.
According to Lakoff and Johnson (1999), the sensorimotor neural structures serve the functions of perception, and ionconceptualisation, categorisation and learning.In other words, these sensorimotor neural models provide the structures which help human beings to conceptualise spatial relation concepts, aspectual concepts and bodily movement concepts.The spatio-geometric concepts provide the basis for the spatial prepositions like on, in, below and above.Therefore, such concepts are automatically and unconsciously processed and understood.These sensorimotor neural structures also give rise to the conceptual mapping of STATES ARE LOCATIONS.In other words, states are viewed and represented experientially in terms of locations.Such correlations are pervasive in ordinary language, and the linguistic expressions are the surface realisation of the sensorimotor neural structures of the human conceptual system (Grady 1997;Lakoff and Johnson 1999).
These sensorimotor neural structures take two image schemas, which are the path schema and the container schema.All the spatial prepositions take any of these image schemas.The spatial relations schema involves prepositions such as in, on, over and under, while the path schema embodying body movements involve prepositions like from, to, into, in front, behind and across.The same container and path schema are also applicable to abstract states.In abstracts states, as in perceptual states, these spatial prepositions carry specific semantic arguments.These semantic arguments are dictated by the correlation of experiences between the domains of location and states (Grady 1997;Lakoff and Johnson 1999).
Sufficient literature exists on the experiential correlations between locations and states.Studies have illustrated that locations map the states through the spatial prepositions.Jamrozik and Gentner (2011) have found that in abstract concepts, spatial meanings of prepositions is retained.Similarly, spatial meanings of prepositions are also retained in the description of time (Gentner, Imai and Boroditsky 2002;Heine 1997;Kranjec et al. 2010;Lakoff and Johnson 1980b;Traugott 1978) and emotions (Kövecses 2003;Rull 2000).These studies show strong emphasis on structuring of states and abstract concepts with spatiogeometric concepts of locations.
However, the STATES ARE LOCATIONS metaphor requires linguistic knowledge to decipher the spatial prepositions.The spatial prepositions refer to spatial relations of a particular kind, but the conceptual metaphor cannot explain the coding of different states by different preposition (Evans, 2013a).The semantic argument for a particular spatial preposition cannot be applied to another spatial preposition.The preposition in in English encodes non-volitional states, while the preposition on encodes volitional states (Evans 2013a).Similarly, in the container schema, the functional consequence of in may either be location with surety, occlusion or affected conditions (Evans 2010).This shows that though spatial prepositions may apparently be produced by sensorimotor neural structures as a consequence of spatio-geometric perceptual experiences, each spatial preposition may carry its own semantic argument depending upon the situational context (Evans 2013a).

Methodology
Data was collected from the Quran through the search of the key word fī.The data was retrieved through the Search Quran software version 4.1.0available at http:// www.islamanalysis.com/wp/.This software works on the basis of lexical item selection.On selection of a lexical item, all the lexical entries in the Quran are retrieved by the software.For data extraction, two forms of the preposition fī, which are ‫ي‬ ِ ‫ف‬ and ‫ِيْ‬ ‫,ف‬ had been used.In the first instance, 1,173 verses were retrieved.The retrieved verses were then manually scrutinised, and the repeated verses were deleted.The refined corpus consisted of 995 verses.The verses, quoted in the paper along with translation and transliteration, have been taken from the website Islamic City (http://corpus.quran.com/wordbyword.jsp).
The next step was to break down the whole text by coding all of the nouns, which followed the preposition fī in the genitive case.During this stage, the technique of keyword collocations with nouns, suggested by Attride-Stirling (2001) and Ryan and Bernard (2003), was used for data extraction and abstraction of themes.This process provided with 690 instances of 200 nouns in the corpus.As the study was more concerned with nouns, the instances in which pronouns followed the preposition were excluded.Keeping in view the spatial nature of the preposition fī, the lexical items encoding different domains were labelled with different codes.These domains included place, time, container, bounded space, location, surroundings, personal attributes and behavioural patterns, groups of people, inanimate phenomena and events.The coding method followed Kövecses' (2002) categorisation of source and target domains to retrieve metaphor themes on the basis of the conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff 1993;Lakoff and Johnson 1980a, 1980b, 1999;Lakoff and Turner 1989).
For the abstraction of themes from the tagged data, lexical unit of noun phrases were selected and their meanings were determined on the basis of various dictionaries, such as al-Isfahani (n.d.), Ibn Fâris (1979) and Lane (1968), as suggested by the Pragglejaz Group (2007).The literal conceptions of the place nouns were categorised under a single theme of a strict spatio-geometric use of the preposition fī.The non-literal abstracted metaphoric themes were classified under a conceptual metaphor.The major metaphoric schemas found in the data on the basis of conceptual metaphor theory were TIME IS BOUNDED SPACE, STATES ARE LOCATIONS, HEARTS ARE CONTAINERS, DISCOURSE IS CONTAINER, PERSONS AND ENTITIES ARE CONTAINERS FOR ATTRIBUTES AND CHARACTERISTICS and RELIGION IS A HOUSE.After the classification of themes, the data was further analysed on the model of (Evans 2010(Evans , 2013a) ) in order to determine the semantic arguments which the spatial preposition fī attains in different situational contexts.The approach on the basis Evans (2010Evans ( , 2013a) ) led to further classification of some conceptual metaphor themes and the identification of spatial preposition fī, which is idiosyncratic in the situated usage.

Results
The sensorimotor neural structures have empirical evidence in language.The spatial prepositions are the consequence of mapping of the human physical experiences with the outside world in the form of bounded space.It has two major schemas of IN-OUT, which are both the constituents of the container schema.These prepositions are generated in language due to the geometric sensorimotor neural structures (Grady 1997;Lakoff and Johnson 1999).There is a lot of empirical evidence in language for such an assumption.

Spatio-Geometric Sense
In the Quran, the preposition fī is used to show the position of an object within a bounded space.It shows that geometric sensorimotor neural structures generate the preposition fī in conveying the human experience of observing objects within the surrounding space.This study has found 450 instances of 76 nouns, where the preposition fī has been used in a strict spatio-geometric sense or in which the traditional Arabic linguists call adverb or adverbials of place.The results are summarised in Table 1.In the above examples, the preposition fī has been used to show the position of an object within the bounded space in physical surroundings.Thus, it carries the locative semantic arguments in each case, and, therefore, in traditional linguistic categorisation of prepositions, it has been termed as a preposition of location.All of the above examples reflect the linguistic manifestation of the container schema, which gives sufficient justification and evidence to the Lakoff and Johnson's (1999) proposal regarding the sensorimotor neural structures behind the use of spatial prepositions in language.On the other hand, it also gives sufficient evidence to the claim of the received model of spatial prepositions that it is the adverb, adverbials or preposition of place.In the strict spatio-geometric use of the preposition fī, both traditional linguists and cognitive theorists converge to the extent that it is a spatial preposition, but diverge on the basis of its usage.The former holds that the nouns define the spatial nature of the preposition but the cognitive theorists hold that it is fa-iq'dhifīhi fī l-yami "And throw (the chest) into the river" (Quran 20:39) In the above examples, the preposition fī attains the semantic argument of bounded space in example (1), location in (2), enclosure in (3) and ( 4), and container in (5).
Examples (4) and ( 5) show that bodily movement concept of 'throw' is connected with the spatial relation concept of in, which causes the preposition to attain the semantic argument of into.In all these cases, the preposition is used in the strict spatio-geometric sense.
Moreover, the preposition fī is also used idiosyncratically as in the case with fī l-samāi in verses 2:144 and 6:125 of the Quran where it is used within the meaning of ila' (to) and fī l-arḍi in verses 17:37 and 31:18 of the Quran with the meaning of ʿalā (on, upon).This means that it is necessary to investigate the preposition in light of the immediate communicative context to arrive at a definite conclusion about the meaning of the preposition.

Time is Bounded Space
The received view of Arabic prepositions has not given any definite arguments for its use with the abstract concept of time.Rather, due to its enormous use with the abstract concept of time, it has also been termed as a preposition of time.The traditional approaches have failed to realise that time and space have experiential correlation in the human conceptual system.The conceptual metaphor TIME IS BOUNDED SPACE (Lakoff 1993) can best illustrate the use of fī with the abstract concept of time.According to the conceptual metaphor theory, human beings understand the target domain of time because it is mapped by the experiential domain of space in the human conceptual system, and therefore, the preposition fī is used with the abstract concept of time.This study has found that the preposition fī has been used in 108 instances with 10 nouns which are given in Table 2.In the above instances, the preposition fī is used with the nouns of time or events.
As the preposition fī has the second most important usage with nouns of time and events, therefore, in the received view of prepositions, it is also regarded as the preposition, adverb, or adverbial of time.However, the traditional linguists cannot explain its occurrence with time.This is because time is an abstract concept, which cannot have a strict spatio-geometric frame.
This question is answered by the conceptual metaphor theory, which says that time and space are conceptually correlated in the human conceptual system.Time has been mapped as bounded space through the preposition fī.It reveals that sensorimotor neural structures in the human conceptual system have psychological reality in defining the abstract concept of time as bounded space and that the preposition fī is generated by these structures in the human conceptual system.These structures are also at work in the use of fī in defining other abstract concepts and states through the container image schema.Hence, sensorimotor neural structures are not only concerned with perception, but also with conception, categorisation and language.
However, the preposition fī carries a quite different semantic argument in all those instances, which are used with time and events.If in the spatio-geometric frame, it carries the semantic value of enclosure or containment; it carries the semantic value of duration, a course, or a period, when used with time or events, as in Table 2.The following example illustrates this point. 6.
lahumu l-bush'rā fī l-ḥayati l-dun'yā "For them are glad tidings, in the life of the present" Life in this verse is not something spatial, but is durational, which further carries connotations of protracted duration, synchronic duration and compressed duration (Evans, 2013a).In this verse, the preposition fī carries the semantic argument of synchronic duration, which is a specific period.Though the preposition fī is literally translated as in, it carries the meaning of duration.

Discourse is Container/Bounded Space
The preposition fī is also used with nouns relating to discourse as a preposition.
In the discourse too, the preposition attains the spatial meaning of containment.It locates the words on the pages of a book as if they were things in a bounded space or in a container.However, discourse can have physical structure like a container, and the words in the book are mapped as things in the container.This study has found both the verbal and written nouns of discourse in the Quran following the preposition fī.There are 45 instances with 11 different nouns, which are given in Table 3.
In Table 3, all the instances of nouns following the preposition fī show written discourse except the nouns ḥadīthin and khawḍi, which denote verbal discourse.
thumma dharhum fī khawḍihim yalʿabūna "Then leave them to plunge in vain discourse and trifling" (Quran 6:91) In the first two examples, the preposition fī preceding the written discourse attains the semantic argument of 'in the book' through container schema, but it definitely also shows the part-whole relationship of the words with the book.However, in example (7), the preposition fī attains the semantic argument of 'inside the engulfing or submerging flood of evil thoughts or fabrication'.Thus, it carries a distinct semantic argument in these two instances because of the different linguistic context.

Religion is a House/Path
The preposition fī is also used with the abstract concept of 'Deen' to give the conceptual metaphor of RELIGION IS A HOUSE.Besides, Islam is also represented as a path.The metaphors relating to Islam or Deen with instantiation of the preposition fī has occurred in 68 verses with 3 nouns.These instances are given in Table 4.The above examples reflect religion as a complex system in a building.The noun dīn in the genitive form in combination with the preposition fī attains spatial characteristics.In examples ( 9) and ( 10), the preposition gets the bounded space schema, while in example ( 11), it attains the semantic argument of location.
However, the preposition fī also shows idiosyncratic behaviour in two instances.These two instances are in verses (Quran 60:8-9) where they support the semantic argument of 'on, account of, or because of'.Similarly, the preposition fī is also used in mapping Islam as a path in 50 instances.The path schema has been used extensively in the Quran to represent Islam, but that investigation is not within the scope of this paper.

Supernatural Events are Containers for Signs of Allah
Supernatural events are mapped as containers for the signs of Allah SWT.The preposition fī is used in the Quran to give spatial characteristic to the incomprehensible supernatural events such as creation of the universe, human beings and the alternation of days and nights.The preposition fī in five instances follows the nouns of khalqi and ikh'tilāfi in genitive forms.The preposition fī attains spatial semantic value but in perspective of events.Therefore, it is quite different from the preceding instances. 12.
mā tarā fī khalqi l-raḥmāni min tafāwutin "No want of proportion wilt thou see in the Creation of (Allah) Most Gracious" (Quran 67:3) In the above verse, the phenomenon of creation is mapped as a container for signs of Allah through the use of the spatial preposition fī with the genitive noun khalqi.The supernatural phenomenon of creation of the universe is configured as a container for the signs of Allah SWT to convince the people about the existence of Allah SWT.

States are Location
The neural sensorimotor structures not only deal with spatio-geometric aspects of human perceptions, but use the same spatio-geometric aspects to map the abstract states, events, actions and activities (Lakoff and Johnson 1980b).Various states in the Quran have been mapped through the container schema, while the events and activities have been mapped as substances for the actions through the preposition fī.The data reveals 191 instances of the STATES ARE LOCATION metaphor in 64 nouns.This paper, following Evans (2010), has found that the major states mapped through container schema are psychosomatic states, socio-interpersonal states, physiological states and prevailing conditions in the Quran.These states are discussed below.

Psychosomatic states
Psychological, subjective or emotional states have either been mapped as containers or substances in the container through the preposition fī.Human psychosomatic states mapped as containers or substances in the container in the Quran are discussed below.

Psychosomatic states are locations
Psychosomatic states have been mapped in container parameters through the spatial preposition of fī.The semantic arguments, which the preposition fī take in such cases, are quite different from those which it takes in spatio-geometric concepts.This state has been used abundantly in the Quran either as containers or substances in containers.Psychosomatic states as containers are found in 125 instances with 27 nouns, given in Table 5.The above phrases show that the preposition fī is not only used in the strict spatiogeometric sense, but it is also used in abstract concepts and states.One of the reasons for this use of the preposition fī is the experiential correlation of states with bounded space or containers.It supports the claim that the preposition fī is generated in language by the conceptual metaphor STATES ARE LOCATIONS.However, as Evans (2010Evans ( , 2013a) ) pointed out in the case of different semantic arguments for the prepositions in and on, the preposition fī carries both the volitional and non-volitional states in Arabic.The states encoded in ( 13) to ( 16) are externally determined states for a human being, while the states encoded in ( 17) to ( 20) are volitional and can be done away with.Similarly, the states encoded in ( 17) to ( 20) are quite different psychological states from the psychosomatic states encoded in ( 13) to ( 16).
Moreover, the preposition fī in fī zīnatihi gets the meaning of maʿa, (with) in verse 28:79 of the Quran and this shows the psychological state of pride.Thus, the same preposition in the Arabic language encodes different states and attains different semantic arguments in different contexts.

Psychosomatic states are substances in containers
The psychosomatic state is also mapped as a substance in the container.The container maps the heart through the use of the preposition fī.In other words, states in hearts are mapped as substances in the container.This semantic argument of the preposition fī has been found in 45 instances in the corpus, given in Table 6.In the Quran, fear/terror, doubt and truth have also been described as substances in the container, which, in this instance, is the heart.These psychological states have been spatially represented as substances in the container through the spatial preposition fī as in the following verses: In all these instances, the preposition fī signals the metaphoric representations of states as substances in the container of hearts.However, in every context, it holds different semantic value depending upon the states it encodes.This is because the heart, in the above linguistic expressions, is metonymic and means intellectual being in ( 21) to ( 24) and ( 32) to (34), psychological being in ( 25) to ( 30) and ( 35) to (36), and social being of man in (31).Moreover, the states, encoded in ( 21) to ( 28) and ( 32), represent the volitional state, but the states encoded in ( 29) to ( 31) and ( 33) to (36), represent the non-volitional state.The volitional state is caused by the will of the person but the non-volitional state is not caused by the will of the person.Thinking, planning and evil intentions are volitional, but fear, terror, amelioration and tranquility are non-volitional states.Thus, in each state, the preposition fī has distinct semantic arguments attached to it.

Socio-Interpersonal States
Socio-interpersonal states are externally determined states which are mapped as locations.These states are mostly produced by acts in the social and interpersonal environment.They are often mapped either as locations or substances (Lakoff and Johnson 1980b).These acts get spatial representation of location through the preposition fī in the Quran.The data reveals 54 instances, with 29 nouns, of such interpersonal states which are the product of human socio-interpersonal interactions.These instances are given in Table 7.
In these instances, the preposition is used with the nouns denoting the states concerning the socio-interpersonal relationship.Some of the nouns are abstract and denote the deeds which produce socio-interpersonal states, while some nouns carry spatial connotation such as fī l-amwāli (Quran 17:64) and fī shayin (Quran 6:159).Besides, some nouns show novel behaviour, as is the case with fī l-asbābi (Quran 38:10), where it gives the meaning of bessabab (due to, on account of, because of).The socio-interpersonal states represented through the preposition fī in the abstract nouns are analyzed in some of the instances below:  53) and ( 54) describe the psychosomatic conditions affected by the surrounding physical conditions, while example (55) states the human behaviour affected by the surrounding physical conditions.The spatial meanings are given to the abstract prevailing conditions on the basis of the container schema, but the preposition fī gets its distinct semantic value on the basis of its contextual use.

Discussions
This study has investigated the spatio-geometric preposition fī within the context of the cognitive theory of metaphor.The linguistic evidence for the relationship of human physical experiences within the bounded space and the spatial use of prepositions is enormous, as illustrated above.The spatio-geometric use of the preposition fī concurs with earlier findings of the traditional linguistics (al-Sayyuti 1982(al-Sayyuti , 1985;;Badawi et al. 2013;Haywood and Nahmad 1962;Sibawayh 1988;Wright 2011) that the preposition is generally used within the meaning of adverbs of place.The received view of prepositions fails to argue for its usage with abstract concepts except for that of time, which, along-with prepositions of location, the traditional linguists place in one category.Time is also an abstract concept and it has quite a different frame of reference than space, as argued by Evans (2013b).
The categorisation carried out by the traditional linguistics fails to capture the diverse phenomenon in which the preposition appears in the discourse.This study, following the cognitive theories of metaphor, has given thematic classification of the preposition, which can be further modified or enriched in other studies.
The data reveals that the spatial nature of the preposition fī also maps the abstract concepts and states under the container schema.The conceptual metaphor STATES ARE LOCATIONS generates the spatio-geometric patterns in language because of the observation of physical objects within the space, or other physical things through sensorimotor neural structures in the human conceptual system.This means that human cognitive domains today have a striking resemblance with cognitive domains of people of more than a thousand years ago.It gives another reflection that the human conceptual system, unless and until it is affected by particular cultural aspects or social indoctrination, remains the same, structured by sensorineural models on the basis of human physical experiences within the bounded space (see Boroditsky 2001;Boroditsky, Fuhrman and McCormick 2011;Kövecses 2005;Maalej 2007Maalej , 2011)).
The data reveals that there is strong linguistic evidence for the sensorimotor neural structures in the human conceptual system, as held by Grady (1997) and Lakoff and Johnson (1999).These structures seem to generate the use of the spatial preposition, as has been illustrated in case of the fī preposition in the Quran.However, the study has found that it depends more upon language use rather than conceptual metaphor.The conceptual metaphor may be a phenomenon behind the use of spatial prepositions, but it is the language use in actual situational contexts which define the meaning of the preposition.The spatial preposition fī gets different meanings in different contexts.These findings support the claim of Evans (2010Evans ( , 2013a) ) that the meaning of a preposition is determined by the language use.This phenomenon of prepositions has been illustrated in analysis of psychosomatic states, socio-interpersonal states, physiological states and prevailing conditions above.However, the findings of this study also go against the findings of Evans ( 2010) that the preposition in has non-volitional nature, while the preposition on is used in those states, which are volitional in nature.The findings show that the preposition fī carries both the volitional and non-volitional states.However, the findings of this study may further be modified or supported with more linguistic evidence by future studies on the use of the same preposition or on other prepositions in the Quran.
Moreover, it may be inferred from the findings that Evans' classification (2010Evans' classification ( , 2013a) ) of the functional semantics of the spatial prepositions may further be investigated in the language of the Quran.Evans (2010Evans ( , 2013a) ) holds that there are four major states, which are the psychosomatic state, socio-interpersonal state, physiological state and prevailing condition state.The socio-interpersonal state may further be extended to personal states encompassing the attributes and behavioural patterns of persons and entities.Moreover, Evans' classification of states may further be studied, because every psychological state is not a psychosomatic state, but all the psychosomatic states are psychological states.The psychosomatic state is contiguous with instability (Mainzer 2007) and has direct effect on the physiological state of a person (Salovey et al. 2000).The states encoded in ( 17) to ( 20) and ( 25) to (28) are psychological and not psychosomatic, while those in (13) to ( 16) are psychosomatic states.This necessitates that further studies are carried out to find out the functional semantic complexity of the preposition fī.
Moreover, the findings also demonstrate the deviant nature of language.Language does not always follow the same linguistic patterns as are categorised by the conceptual metaphor theory.Whereas the conceptual metaphor searches for symmetry in language, language use also violates the rigid symmetrical pattern.These findings have also been discussed in previous literature (see Cameron and Deignan 2006;Cserép 2014;Stefanowitsch and Gries 2007).This study shows that the preposition fī gets different semantic arguments, which are quite novel from its normal usage.This substantiates Evans' claims (2010Evans' claims ( , 2013a) that language generation is not solely the result of conceptual mapping in the human conceptual system but also depends upon the situational use.This study also holds that interpretation is a constructive process where the meaning depends upon the situational context, and therefore, the traditional view of prepositions may be revisited in the interpretation of the prepositional phrases in the Quran.

Conclusion
The findings of the study show that the spatial preposition fī is not merely a lexical-syntactic phenomenon, but it is also a cognitive phenomenon.It can better be comprehended through a comprehensive cognitive approach based on the conceptual metaphor theory with Evans' (2010, 2013a) classification of states.It takes the preposition fī from the mere grammatical function of locating objects within the spectrum of space and time to a linguistic concept which scaffolds a large number of abstract concepts, states, events and attributes.Thus, the cognitive approach broadens the narrow view of traditional linguists regarding semantic variation in symmetrical categories of the preposition fī.Still, the findings also illustrate that language cannot be abridged to specific symmetric patterns which are often overridden by the imagination of man.However, the present study has analysed only a segment of the data, and therefore, the findings cannot be generalised for a definite theoretical proposal regarding full semantic functionality of the prepositions.Therefore, further studies may be suggested for unveiling further semantic potentials of the spatial prepositions.Moreover, the spatial preposition fī also follows the path schema which may be studied in future research studies.The cognitive approach will revitalise the approaches of the interpretation, classification and categorisation of prepositions to unknot its functional semantic complexity in the Quran.

Table 1 .
Nouns denoting locations (continued on next page)

Table 1 .
(continued)generated in language by sensorimotor neural structures in the human conceptual system.This is illustrated with the following examples:

Table 4
shows that religion is mapped as a house in 6 instances through the preposition fī.In these instances, the preposition gets the semantic argument of 'concerning/regarding, in matters relating to religion or in religion' as in the following verses:

Noun Translation Frequency Noun Translation Frequency Noun Translation Frequency
In the above verses, it is the preposition fī which defines the heart as a container for thinking or planning.The above expressions are generated by sensorimotor neural structures, mapping the heart as a container for thoughts or plans.The heart is also mapped as a container for psychological states of perversity and diseases in the Quran through the preposition fī, as in the following verses: wayush'hidul-lahaʿalā mā fī qalbihi "and he calls Allah to witness about what is in his heart"(Quran 2:204)