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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.COSIT.2026.15

Through and Through: Corpus-Based Semantic Analysis of a Spatial Preposition (Short Paper)

Authors: Brandon Bennett and Maria M. Hedblom

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 393, 17th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT 2026)

Abstract

We present a corpus-based analysis of sentences containing the highly polysemous word "through" and establish a framework for categorising sentence constituents in relation to this preposition. Using the annotated corpus, together with ideas from the fields of Lexical Semantics and Knowledge Representation, we specify a typology of figure, path-verb, and ground terms, characterised by the affordances they provide for participation in "through" relationships. We find that the mode of affordance provided by the ground is often ambiguous: many types of object can provide multiple modes of grounding for a "through" relationship, associated with different geometrical conditions between figure and ground. However, this ambiguity can be explained and often resolved or reduced by considering compatible combinations of figure and ground affordances in relation to the path.

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Brandon Bennett and Maria M. Hedblom. Through and Through: Corpus-Based Semantic Analysis of a Spatial Preposition (Short Paper). In 17th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 393, pp. 15:1-15:7, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{bennett_et_al:LIPIcs.COSIT.2026.15,
  author =	{Bennett, Brandon and Hedblom, Maria M.},
  title =	{{Through and Through: Corpus-Based Semantic Analysis of a Spatial Preposition}},
  booktitle =	{17th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT 2026)},
  pages =	{15:1--15:7},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-438-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{393},
  editor =	{Timpf, Sabine and Filomena, Gabriele and Kapaj, Armand and Zhu, Rui and Giudice, Nicholas A. and Manley, Ed},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.COSIT.2026.15},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-275594},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.COSIT.2026.15},
  annote =	{Keywords: Preposition, Polysemy, Semantics, Spatial Relation, Ontology}
}

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Documents authored by Hedblom, Maria M.

Through and Through: Corpus-Based Semantic Analysis of a Spatial Preposition (Short Paper)

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