Abstract
We do not claim
to give an orderly and complete presentation of all the problems
concerning translation equivalents. No attempt has been made to
solve all the difficulties which crop up in the process of translation and to attempt to include everything would have been
impossible in this restricted study. However, those who will
find this work useful will have enough knowledge to find the
answers to the questions themselves.
Perhaps the greatest problem here has been to decide what
sort of difficulties do arise in the translation process and to
raise the point for further investigation.
In this work, we classified the uses of prepositions under
categories based on principles of more or less scope, from the
commonest, or standard translation, to limited uses, sometimes in
connection with a single "key word". Unless a specific statement
is made to the effect, it should be assumed that the preposition
given in an example is always the only correct one. It must be
remembered that nothing in language is more variable than the use
of prepositions. Even if we supplemented this work with all the
grammars and dictionaries ever published, many prepositional
difficulties would be left unsolved. No amount of rules and
examples can provide against all sorts of contingencies and guard
against all sorts of pitfalls in translation and, of course, this
is particularly true of prepositions.
