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Is anyone aware of a cognitive linguistic reason why we say concentrate on something? It baffles me.

What alternative preposition would make more sense to you?

Perhaps:

1. to concentrate on something (e.g. "I concentrated on the matter in hand"):

— "concentrate" here means "focus", as a lens concentrates (causes to gather at a certain point) the rays of the sun.

2. to concentrate in something (e.g. "Power is concentrated in the hands of old men"):

— "concentrate" here means "increase in strength", as acid is concentrated by evaporation.

Thus in #1, the "on" has a literal meaning, within the metaphor (so to speak).

Best wishes,

MrP

I wasn't thinking of over turning the language that we all know and love by suggesting an alternative preposition. No no. Nothing so grand. I was merely interested if anyone could come up with a reason for using 'on' in this sense where I couldn't. The prototypical meaning of on is... well you know what it is. The pen is on the table.

I like the idea about the suns rays being concentrated on something. But then the question is (in my mind) which came first? Did 'to concentrate on something' occur after 'concentrating something on'?

Not to worry. I think it's pretty difficult to attempt to explain this without a serious amount of research. It is what it is. Thanks for the suggestion though Mrp.

zorro (3) wrote: I think it's pretty difficult to attempt to explain this without a serious amount of research.

Yes, I'd agree. The verbs "concentrate" and ""concentre", as well as the French verb "concentrer", seem to have an original sense of "collect at a common centre" (both trans. and intrans.); so "at" might seem as likely a choice.

In mind-related contexts, Burke has "to concentre the mind on a sole object" (cf. current "to centre on"); Samuel Johnson, "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully".

The figurative "attention" meaning seems to be later than the purely physical or military meanings; as you say, we would probably need to research the earliest occurrences quite thoroughly, to establish what metaphor(s) lay behind them.

Best wishes,

MrP

Aha! The deep meaning of prepositions!

As far as I can see "on" refers either to a point in contact with a line ( "on the border", "on-Tyne") or to a point or plane in contact with another topological plane. Nothing to do with the horizontal.

It's far too easy to be wise after the event but I can just about visualise "concentrate on" as perhaps referring to a word on a page or more probably as part of a wider idea of "meditate on", "have one's mind on", "keep one's eye on", dialect "think on" etc.

I've always thought that "of" is the most mysterious of the prepositions.

Interesting ideas. If we are considering 'concentrate on' to be a point or plane in contact with another topological plane, then this would assume that in some way we see ourselves as not being confined within our bodies. We are able to (metaphorically) mentally transcend our bodily boundaries and meet our subject with 'on-ness'!! Perhaps I'm just going over the top. Probably a hangover from my youthful experimental days...

I do agree that 'of' is a funny one though. And how about 'about'? Why do we consider thinking to be more about than on?

Cognitive linguistics is a very interesting subject but it's pretty hardcore!! And possibly a little bit too intuitive and so therefore murky...

"About" is easier if you think of it in its sense of circling as well as of approximation:

"And about his shoulders he cast the silver-studded sword of bronze"

"About turn!"

So "think about" may may be very like "get your head round"
or it may allow a certain amount of fuzzy logic and little mental sidetracks.

I suppose it is interesting in a way, but is it really worth worrying about it? I mean, if you looked at a number of languages then you would get a range of prepositions meaning vaguely similar things doing varying jobs, and they even vary within English over time and dialect e.g "think on that" etc. In the end, a language just has to choose one or another (or none at all!) to represent particular abstract situations.

What's interesting is how "English" prepositions can creep into languages that use different prepositions. I suspect it's due to badly translated, dubbed Hollywood movies.

Yes, that sounds fun For example?