A growing number of studies, including Mkhelif’s which is to come, have recently provided evidence indicative of an important role of frequency in the acquisition of EFL vocabulary items.

The frequency of usage of certain preposition is a real factor that may contribute to that.

Interesting question. I think that ease of learning phrases is related to how easy it is to form a mental image.

I can picture me putting an entry _in_ my Google calendar or diary for the morning.

However I find it hard to imagine putting something _on_ the table called "purpose"!

Hello Adnan. Have you run the occurence of those tokens based on corpus? It seems to me that the first case ("in the morning", that works as an adverbial phrase of time-moment) it should co occur in a higher frequency. The other case ("on purpose" also an adverb meaning "intentionally") describes a mental attitude held by the subject and it is an event related modifier. This is not a standard manner adverb, so it may be harder to capture in its core meaning, rather than the "in the morning" phrase given that time or moment adverbs are visually easier to conceptualize in a cognitive processing operation. Additionally,it seems to me that a mental attitude is a highly abstract operation, that deserves bigger efforts to be lexically operationalized, and even more difficult to embedd in a sentence.

There are no specific rules on the use of prepositions because most of the time they are used in idiomatic combinations. Common sense dictates what's logical and what's not. Some prepositions, like "over," "into," "on," among others, have predertermined functions.Care; however, should be taken into consideration, because of the user's cultural orientation.

It may be to do with our embodied perecptions of the world. Karl Haag (1860-1946) believed that language derives from the fact that humans are embodied beings in a world which they perceive through their senses, and it is these senses and the perceptions that they provide that are the basis of thought and snd speech. The spatial is thus the central concept in Haag's system. Concepts such as 'time' will later be derived from the central notion of 'space'. The four most important perceptions of space are the horizontal and the vertical, the distant and the enclosed. Thus 'distance' in space can become 'distance' in time. Similarly, that which is enclosed in space can become that which is enclosed in time. A period such as a morning is seen as an enclosed space, neighbouring but excluding the afternoon. Anything happening within that space is 'in the morning'. See my article 'Karl Haag, Modern Linguistics, and 'Real Character' ' in the Journal of Universal Language, Vol. 17, No. 12, Fall 2016.

This does not exactly explain why we say 'on purpose' in English, but it is clear that 'purpose' is seen as some kind of vehicle which we board in order to get something done. Similarly expressions such as 'under duress' express a metphorical meaning through words which apply to the physical world (the victim is beneath the oppressor).

The universality of Haag's pronunciations may be difficult to prove. In German, where the English say 'in this way', one says 'auf dieser Weise' (on this way). The same type of difference may be found in many other languages, e.g. French 'de cette manière' (of/from this way). The main thrust of Haag's argument, however, is that we use language metaphorically in relation to our senses. Consequently, whatever preposition our language chooses will depend on the ground of the metaphor (in the morning: time = space; on purpose: purpose = vehicle).

Perhaps it is easier to learn prepositional phrases whose metaphorical ground is clearer. - Ian Maun

Dear All,

I very much appreciate your informative comments, which highlight potential factors that are likely to be at play as far as the acquisition of such word combinations is concerned.

Hello, Patricio. Yes, I have checked their frequency in the British National Corpus (BNC). Unlike “on purpose”, which has a frequency of 1.7 per million in the BNC, “in the morning” is far more frequent: it has a frequency of 39.53 per million.

A growing number of studies, including Mkhelif’s which is to come, have recently provided evidence indicative of an important role of frequency in the acquisition of EFL vocabulary items.

So, as Chibuike and Patricio have indicated, frequency as a factor is at work here, but is it the only factor at play? Is its effect independent of any other potential factors (e.g. those mentioned by Ian Kennedy, Patricio, Estrella, and Ian Maun or any other relevant factors)?

Are there any other relevant factors/features that may contribute to the ease or difficulty of learning such word combinations?

Interesting question. As far as I know, Prepositions are strange to L! learners. as wedont have them . Mostly Idiomatic phrases and prepositional phrases play a great role . Hence we find strange combinations

Dear Sundarachariar,

Thank you for your interest and interesting comment.