Acoustic Prepositional Deletion in the Quran: The Case of ىلإ, ilā. A Constructional Grammar Approach

The purpose of this study is to investigate the linguistic phenomenon of Acoustic Prepositional Deletion (APD) (ايعامس ضفاخلا عزن, nazʿi al-khāfiḍ smaʿyan) in the Quran. It mainly addresses deleting the preposition ىلإ, ilā from some verses of the Quran despite being preceded by an intransitive verb. The study applies the perspective of Cognitive Linguistic (CL) theory and its relevant approaches to the analysis of the data included. Construction Grammar (CxG) is mainly used to examine to what extent the (non)existence of an element (i.e. preposition) of a particular construction may lead to the alternation of the spatial relationships existing between its elements, and what consequences may appear due to the manipulation of the existing relationships. The study finds that APD results in new partially or totally different, opposite or negative, abstract or manner spatial relationships between the construction entities which in turn result in different semantic conceptualization of these relationships. It also finds out that the degree of loyalty to the spatial scene in the Target Text (TT) varies from partially loyal to disloyal. This validates Croft’s (2001-2017) hypothesis that meaning is both construction and language specific.


INTRODUCTION
Prepositions play a vital role in the construction and inferences of meaning as linguistic devices in a language due to their relational function. Their analysis has always been considered a hard task because of their polysemous nature and their meaning dependency on the context they are used in. Quirk et al (1985), state that prepositions have been in the core of a huge variety of linguistic studies for the purpose of investigating them as semantic and syntactic constituents. They have been defined in terms of grammar as a class of word (s) formed and used with other grammatical constituents to form prepositional phrases (Macfadyn, 2015). Prepositions modify a verb, a noun, or adjective and express multi relations between the entities of a construction such as location, destination, motion, time or manner (Hamdallah and Tusheyeh, 1993). In addition, Ryding (2005), states that they may be used in abstract or figurative ways. Their combination with the verbs, according to Langacker (1987), is an indication of the speakers' ability to recognize the contribution of the single component to the whole. This notion points to what semantically motivates the process of selecting a particular preposition to combine with the verb (Imran Ho-Abdullah, 2010).
According to Turewicz (2004) the spatial aspect of prepositional meaning has always been considered the most representative in the majority of works on prepositions. The target Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD. Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.8n.3p.55 beyond these works is to show the relationship between the manner in which physical space is divided in a language and the manner in which mental space is structured (Fauconnier, 1994). All of this is carried out by establishing connections of meanings from physical into mental space (Dirven, 2011). For example, from spatial domain into time domain, and to the more abstract domains such as state, topic, or area. This conceptualization of physical and mental spaces paves the way for the cognitive analyses of prepositions.

A Cognitive Linguistic Account of Prepositional Meaning
Within a Cognitive Grammar (CG) old assumption of semantics, prepositions are considered as two-or-three place predicates that express a relation between two or three participants of a spatial event (Wibbelt, 1993). In Cognitive Linguistics (CL) terms, prepositions express how the parts which constitute a spatial scene are configurated by the conceptualizer with respect to each other (Langacker, 1987). Consequently, this particular cognitive relation is profiled according to cognitive principles operating on the conventions which are associated with the respective parts of a spatial scene in the particular cognitive domain. Cognitive linguists have always felt that it is their responsibility to reveal vagueness concerning prepositional meaning resulting from the infirm study of the semantics of prepositions within other approaches such as the lexicographical, grammatical,

IJALEL 8(3):55-65
and thematic role approaches (Imran Ho-Abdullah, 2010). To elaborate things more, their attempt is to investigate how languages account for real life scenes. Due to their enormous semantic potential, polysemous nature, and syntactic functions, prepositions appear ideal for lexical class assumptions and theories that investigate how lexical are presented and processed (Tyler and Evans, 2003).
Being applied to the mental inventory of constructions in the theory of Construction Grammar (CxG) of Goldberg (1995), a construction constitutes a conventional unit pairing of form and meaning. The form is concerned with the phonological string of conventional sound segments in a particular language, and the meaning is concerned with the mental representation (i.e. lexical concept) that is conventionally associated with a form (Evans, 2007). According to Goldberg (2003), within CxG approach, the aim is to account for all facts about a particular language without any assumption about a particular subset as of greater importance, and that constructionists "agree that unusual constructions shed light on more general issues, and can illustrate what is required for a complete account of a language" (ibid:219).
Based on this perspective of CxG, meaning is driven from the mental dictionary of words, and "it is based on truth and inferences; it concerns the relationship between symbols and things in the world" (Lakoff, 1987:13), and so meaning is symbolic. According to Peate (2012) this encyclopedic notion of meaning refers to the way individuals subjectively construe the world in an embodied and socially constituted experience. Following this notion, it is on the basis of the input and general cognitive mechanisms that constructions are understood to be learnt, and so they are expected to vary within languages and across languages. Consequently, meanings are thought of as both construction-specific and language-specific.
Concerning prepositions, Croft and Sutton (2017) state that they are normally included in dictionaries as independent words, similar to other function words such as articles, auxiliaries, and discourse markers, etc. The authors suggest that "the dictionary entries for such words should ideally provide some information about the construction(s) they occur in… at least a general schema for the construction, and a general characterization of its meaning would be desirable in a dictionary" (ibid:3). In his account of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) prepositions, Peate (2012) follows Croft's (2005) Top-Down view of constructional meaning; a construction determines the meanings of its elements that appear in it as constructions are primitive but their elements are not. This Radical Construction Grammar (RCG) "irreducible and non-reductionist approach to the meaning of a construction" (Croft: 2013:162) views a construction as a primitive status, and syntactic categories do not exist at all; an idea that represents the main theme of RCG.
Applying a CxG view shared with the RCG view of Croft (2001Croft ( -2017 to a construction, Peate (2012) presents a reasonable justification behind his adaptation of the aforementioned approaches to the study of MSA prepositions. The author declares that RCG is functional-cognitive in orientation, empirically-grounded, accounting for meaning based on the storage of semantic units when determining the meaning of their elements, ability to apply to MSA prepositions in an unmediated way, and making no previous assumptions about lexical categories.

The Concept of APD in Arabic
The concept of APD has been used by Arab grammarians to refer to a linguistic phenomenon when a noun is assigned an accusative case mark due to the deletion of the preposition that precedes it resulting in a new direct relationship between the noun and the verb in question (Ibn Manẓūr,1994). Al-Ahdal, (1990) refers to the same concept to point out a state when the noun in accusative case preceded by a verb and a preposition which is deleted in this case either in an acoustic or standard way. According to al-ʿAidī (2003) the term was first investigated by Sibawayh (1988) who talked about the linguistic phenomenon without giving it a specific term. The same thing applies for al-Mubarrid (1993). Ibn al-Sarraj (1988) had the same thought with one exception. He introduces a new concept similar to analogy ‫للنظير(‬ ‫النظير‬ ‫للمضاد‬ ‫والمضاد‬ al-naẓiru lil-naẓir wal-muḍad lil-muḍad) which literary implies that the opposite meaning of a transitive verb must also be transitive such as 'go out and enter' ‫دخل(‬ ‫و‬ ‫,خرج‬ kharaja wa dakhala). It was not until the period of Ibn Hisham (1969) when the concept became clearer. He differentiated between the adverb and the preposition. For example, he compared the following two sentences in the example below e.g. ‫الدار‬ ‫دخلت‬ Translit: dakhaltu al-dāra Trans: I entered the house e.g. ‫الدار‬ ‫*صليت‬ Translit: *ṣallaytu al-dāra Trans: *I prayed the house In the first sentence the deletion of any of the prepositions ‫,في‬ ‫ِب‬ , ِ ‫ل‬ , and ‫إلى‬ fī, bi, li, ilā is acceptable, but it is unacceptable in the second sentence. The reason behind this categorization is that the deletion of the preposition in question is permissible with the verb 'to enter' ‫,دخل(‬ dakhala) but not with the verb 'to pray' ‫صلى(‬ ṣallā). He termed this process 'dropping the preposition' ‫الخافض(‬ ‫,إسقاط‬ iṣqātu alkhāfiḍ). Two new terms appeared in that period 'deletion and attachment' ‫وااليصال(‬ ‫,الحذف‬ al-ḥadfu wa al-iṣal) by Basran Linguistic School and 'acoustic prepositional deletion' ‫نزع(‬ ‫سماعيا‬ ‫,الخافض‬ nazʿi al-khāfiḍ smaʿyan) by Kaufan Linguistic School. Al-Alusī (1994), Hassan (1960, Qabawah (1978), and Ḍayef (1986) all have used the term 'nazʿi al-khāfiḍ' to describe the phenomenon in Arabic. Samarah (2010) explains that there are various reasons behind the APD: the frequent use of the preposition especially with names of places, the clarity of the meaning and the ease of identification of the deleted preposition, brevity and abridgment, estimating the existence of the omitted preposition, poetic necessity, the existence of a verbal clue of the preposition, the verbal substitution of the preposition by the additives, in prayers, in long speech, and in non-confusing speech. She also adds that a preposition is dropped in Arabic only with certain verbs like 'thank' ‫,شكر(‬ shakara), 'advise' (‫,نصح‬nasaḥa), 'leave' ‫,خرج(‬ kharaja), and 'go' ‫,ذهب(‬ dhaha-ba), and finally with some exclusive Arabic phrases that were heard from the Arabs (ibid:144). Table (1) below cited at Samarah (ibid:161) displays a list of these verbs, nevertheless; it does not include many of the verbs used in the Quran.
According to Ibn al-Sarraj (1988) deleting the preposition and changing the verb from intransitive into transitive is exclusive to what only heard from Arabs since there are no firm grammatical rules that govern such a linguistic phenomenon "…not every prepositional intransitive verb can be changed into transitive by deleting the preposition; this is possible in cases that the verbs in question were exclusively used by Arabs and heard from them" (ibid:313-314). The author explain that this sort of deletion does not follow any grammatical rules, but it is only the cases that heard from Arabs and so we cannot invent new constructions based on the heard ones. These new APD constructions are not standard grammatical constituents. According to Hasan (1960) if these examples are not acoustic and exclusive only to the heard verbs from Arabs, it will be difficult for language users to recognize the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs, language will be more ambiguous, meaning will be distorted, and so language in general will lose one of its basic characteristics which is clarity and explicitness by applying firm, non-mixed, and precise standards.
Deletion of prepositions in the Quran does not differ from that in Arabic in general, except that it is considered as an aspect of its linguistic miraculous nature. According to al-Jurjanī (1992), deletion as a Quranic procedure plays a vital role in the interpretation of the verses. APD may occur with the seven Arabic true prepositions (i.e. ‫في‬ fī (in, on, at), ‫من‬ min (from, of, out of), ‫عن‬ ʿan (away, apart from), ِ ‫ل‬ li (to, for), ‫على‬ ʿalā (over, above, up), ِ ‫ب‬ bi (in, at, on, with, by), and ‫إلى‬ ilā (to, for, towards). The later preposition will only be the interest and the core of this study.
Cognitively, deletion as a process is very beneficial for training and activating the brain as it is urged to look for the meanings hidden as a result of that omission (Ghanawī and al-Karkhī, 2010). Al-Zarkashī (1988) states that an intentionally deleted element will urge the hearer's or the reader's mental thinking to find what has been removed from the context. This mental process evokes the importance of the omitted element because it becomes the core of that cognitive process. Moreover, deletion may also act as a glorification for the deleted element when the brain works to find the purpose and reasons behind removing out the element in question. It could also be an aspect of economic language usage as a method of linguistic abbreviation and abridgement (Abdel-Salam, 1991).
To sum up here, the concept in hand is a linguistic phenomenon that means omitting the preposition of a prepositional verb intentionally after some verbs and in a limited number of Arabic expressions. Semantically, this deletion conveys completely or partially different relationships between the entities of a construction and so affects the intended meaning. Syntactically, it leads to assigning an accusative case mark for the following noun instead of a former genitive one. Cognitively, deletion is a sort of activation for the brain processes on the one hand, and showing the importance of the omitted element on the other hand. Investigating APD will help the participants of a speech event to understand each other easily.

Problem of the Study
The linguistic phenomena of deletion of prepositions in the Quran, is a phonemenon existed in the Arabic language and was studied by few scholars to explain the meaning connived by this deletion. As the cognitive theories understand the deletion and other semantics phonemes, the part of the same phenomena in the Quran has its own functions, and a study of this function can boost the understanding of the language of the Quran as it is viewed as a holy book for Muslims. This study looks at the phenomena from a linguistics perspective and tries to understand the deletion and its connived meaning. Few studies and literature took the matter and tried to understand other similar phenomena in the Quran, and connected to semantics and cognitive approaches. The deletion phenomena were carried in this study to understand the meaning conveyed by it.

Aims and Goals of this Study
This study aims to understand the phenomena of the deletion of the preposition of ‫,إلى‬ ilā in the Quran, and connected to a linguistic approach rather than just an interpretation of the holy book.
These study goals are as the following: 1. To understand the Quran phenomena of preposition deletion of a specific preposition ‫,إلى(‬ ilā) which is equivalent in meaning to "to" in English language. 2. To connect the phenomena function to the linguistic cognitive and semantic approach. 3. To connect Cognitive Linguistic (CL) theory and its relevant approaches to the analysis of the chosen data and examples form the Quran with the available interpretation to reach for the linguistic meaning and functions.

METHODOLOGY
Content Analysis (CA) as a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from text or other meaningful matters (Krippendorf, 2004) is used in this study. This is due to the fact that as a scientific tool for a research technique, CA provides new insights, increases the researcher's understanding of a particular phenomenon or informs practical actions. The study analyzes and discusses verses from the Quran collected from all chapters where the preposition ‫,إلى‬ ilā has been intentionally deleted for rhetoric purposes. The selection of verbs is made based on some criteria. As a first step, Arabic grammar books and references will be consulted to examine whether the verb in the construction in question is transitive or intransitive. As a second step, if the verb is intransitive but not followed by the customary preposition usually follows it based on the context, then it can be concluded that prepositional deletion has occurred. A following step is to consult Arabic well known dictionaries namely Ibn Manẓūr (1994), Sibawayh (1988), and Abāḍi (2005), in addition to Arabic-English dictionaries such as Baʿalbakī (1995) and Wehr (1979) to find out the different senses the preposition in question conveys. This will be followed by an investigation of English books of Arabic grammar (i.e. Quirk 1985;Ryding 2005;and Buckley 2004) amongst others to find out the spatial relationship(s) the preposition designates. The above step will be followed by consulting Arab scholars' works and Quranic exegeses to explain their grammatical categorization of the construction as a whole, and to find out the semantic interpretation of the construction in concern (i.e. verse). It also aims at showing how the spatial relationship existing between the entities of a particular construction may be altered as a consequence of this deletion.
A final step in the analysis of the examples of this study is to check with the seven approved translations of the Quranic Arabic Corpus (QAC) namely Sahīh (1997), Khan (1996), Sarwar (1981), Shakir (1999) Arberry (1955) Pickthall (1930 and Ali (1934) to find out to what extent they maintain in their Target Text (TT) the spatial relationship that is apparent to that of the Source Text (ST). This final two steps are the core of this study as they investigate to what extent Croft's (2001Croft's ( -2017 CxG hypothesis 'meaning is construction-language-specific' is true and applicable to the topic addressed in this study.

Arabic Preposition Use (Review)
According to Ibn Manẓūr (1994) the central or primary sense of 'movement to' or 'direction towards' for the preposition ‫إلى‬ ilā is generally profiled. A similar notion is presented by Sibawayh (1988) and Abāḍī (2005) with one slight difference which indicates that the preposition might designate a sense of 'ending' where the end includes the first limit and the last one, but does not allow exceeding it. In the example below, the meaning that ‫إلى‬ ilā designates is that the TR arrived at a place; however, it could denote the (im)possibility of entering that place (ibid). The example below shows how the preposition in question is used in its primary sense. e.g. ‫المدينة‬ ‫إلى‬ ‫مكة‬ ‫من‬ ‫ذهبت‬ Trans: dhahabtu min makkata ilā al-madinati Translit: I went from Mecca to Madinah In his account for the preposition, Baʿalbakī (1995:155) introduces a summary with the meanings of 'to, towards, until, till, up to, as far as'. This summary is completely similar to that of Wehr (1979). Ryding (2005:383) identifies a general sense which is directional towards an object with spatiotemporal, abstract, and figurative ways. She adds that "with many verbs of motion, it is necessary to use it with the point of destination". Moreover, Buckley (2004) introduces a more detailed explanation where it expresses the 'the local meaning of movement to' or 'direction towards' a place, and it indicates the place or person to which an action or movement is directed. Table (2) below is an elaboration of the usage of the preposition in its primary sense with reference to other prepositions in Arabic. Temporally, ‫,إلى‬ ilā expresses "the point in time until which an event takes place or a circumstance persists. It can also indicate the point up to which or until which something lasts or continues" (ibid: 291).
Arabic scholars such as ʿUdaymeh (1983), al-Khudarī (1989), al-Samiraī (2000, and al-Dusuqī 2006) illustrated that the primary sense of ‫,إلى‬ ilā, does not differ from those mentioned above. They explain that it has the central sense of 'ending of a movement towards a destination or a place'. When used temporally, it indicates the same notion. If it overlaps with other prepositions, it may designate the senses of accompany, attachment, containment, superimposition, emphasis, etc (al-Dusuqī, 2006). Table (3) below illustrates the secondary usages of the preposition.
‫آخره‬ ‫إلى‬ ‫أوله‬ ‫من‬ ‫الكتاب‬ ‫قرأت‬ Translit: qara'tu al-kitāba min awwalihi ilā akhirih Trans: I read the book from the beginning to the end. In spatial terms, the preposition has the central sense of a TR moving towards a LM and/or arriving into a contact with it (Tyler and Evans, 2003, where the arrival point or the departure point may be profiled (Peate, 2012). Table (4) below illustrates the relationship between the TRs and the LMs as profiled by the primary sense of the preposition in question compared to other Arabic prepositions.
The preposition may also overlap with the preposition ِ ‫ل‬ li when it designates the meaning of 'towards'. Moreover, it has a steady relationship with respect to that exists between the TR and the LM since it always profiles the arrival of the TR at the LM) Mueller, 2016). The main goal of the following analysis and discussion is to investigate within the CL theory and the related approaches how the deletion of the preposition may profile new spatial relationships between the entities of a particular construction resulting in partially or totally different interpretations.

Data Analysis
Following, is the analysis of the data of the preposition under study extracted from the Quran. (1) اه‬ (al-Quran:1: 6) Translit: ihdinā al-ṣirāṭa al-mus'taqīma Trans: Show us the straightway. (Ali, 1934) In the example above, the verb 'guide'(‫هدى‬ hadā) can be transitive by itself with the meanings of 'inspire, make us succeed in, or provide us with' (Ibn ʿAshūr, 1984). It can also be intransitive followed by the preposition ‫إلى‬ ilā. The verb in this verse becomes transitive because the customary preposition that follows it is deleted following a linguistic phenomenon known as APD in Arabic (al-Ansārī, 2003). Ibn Khathīr (1999) states that the verb is intransitive with meanings of 'guide, direct, lead and grant us the correct guidance'. The context of the verse implies that it is the Believers who ask for more guidance despite the fact that they are already guided (al-Zamakhsharī, 1998).
In his illustration of this verse, al-Quṭrubī (2006:126) adds that this method is more appropriate and efficient in bringing about a positive answer to the pleas with meanings like guide, direct, or show. In addition, the 'path or way' ... ‫,الصراط(‬ al-ṣirāṭa) is the second object because the verb 'guide' ‫,هدى(‬ hadā) becomes transitive in this case for a second object with a preposition or without a preposition as in the above mentioned verse, and so ' straight or right' ‫ِيم(‬ ‫َق‬ ‫ْت‬ ‫س‬ ُ ‫م‬ ْ ‫,ال‬ al-mustaqīma) is an adjective for it (Ibn ʿAshūr, 1984). The author illustrates that there is difference in meaning which occurs as a result of the state of (in) transitivity of the verb in hand. For example, while the transitive verb 'guide' is used to give more guidance for those who are already on the right way, the intransitive verb conveys the sense that those who ask for guidance are not already guided or directed properly.
According to al-Ṭabarī (2001:167), the verb 'guide' can convey the meaning of "give us more guidance and make us more steadfast, stable and invariable till the end of our lives". The author emphasis that inserting the preposition ‫إلى‬ ilā in the above construction (i.e. verse) will lead to a different meaning which conveys the sense that the speakers (the Believers) are totally ignorant or unaware of the right way or path, and so it is a request for guidance because of obscurity (ibid). Al-Andalusī (1993) mentions that the verb 'guide' is originally followed by a second object if followed by a preposition such as ‫إلى‬ ilā, or ِ ‫ل‬ li. Therefore, guidance for straight or right path is more efficient since the straight line is the shortest, nearest, and the most invariable one.
In general, it can be concluded, guided by CxG of Croft (2001Croft ( -2017, that the discussion is carried out about two constructions: the first is [VERB + PRONOUN(1 st obj) + NOUN(2 nd obj)] where the meaning conveyed is asking for more or increase of guidance and so more stability. The second construction is [VERB + PRONOUN (1 st obj) + PREP-OSITION + NOUN (2 nd obj)] which designate a sense of ignorance or unawareness. On the one hand, in the first construction the spatial relationship that exists between the entities is abstract although it may map the conceptual metaphor MORE GUIDANCE = MORE QUALITY/PREVILAGE (Fauconnier and Turner, 2008). On the other hand, the spatial relationship that is profiled in the second construction with the existence of the preposition is the metaphorical usage of TERMENATION or ARRIVAL POINT (Johnson, 1990).
The investigation of the seven approved translations of the above verse in the Quranic Arabic Corpus (QAC) shows that five of them keep a preposition in their translations (i.e. Sahīh (1997), Khan (1996), Sarwar (1981), Shakir (1999) and Arberry (1955) varying from 'to' for the first three and 'on' or 'in' for the last two respectively. The other two, Pickthall (1930) and Ali (1934) do not have any preposition in their translations. Inserting a preposition in the first five translations has led to a partially or totally different meaning that is resulted from the manipulation of the relationships which exist between the entities of the construction under study. For example, the preposition 'to' in its primary sense implies the image schema of a destination or termination, on implies the primary sense of higher than and so elevation, and in implies the image schema of containment (Tyler and Evans, 2003). Consequently, the translations may mislead the readers in comprehending the exact interpretation of the verse.
It is obvious that the spatial relationship that exists between the entities in the construction above mentioned in example (1) is not any of the three mentioned (i.e. termination/destination, elevation, or containment). It is a sort of relationship that is expressed directly without the need to use a preposition (Langacker, 2009) where asking for guidance, direction, and stability is profiled with the conceptual metaphor ASKING FOR MORE GUIDANCE = LONGING FOR MORE PREVALIGE. Example (2) below will shed light on another verse where APD occurs. ( و‬ (al-Quran: 2:148) Translit: walikullin wij'hatun huwa muwallīhā fais'tabiqū l-khayrāti Trans: To each is a goal to which Allah turns him; then strive together in a race towards all that is good. (Ali, 1934) The example above shows that ‫وا‬ ُ ‫ق‬ ِ ‫َب‬ ‫ْت‬ ‫َاس‬ ‫ف‬ fa-is'tabiqū can be translated into 'race to, vie with one another, strive together as in a race, hasten to or towards, compete with, or be you forward in good works'. The verb is originally an intransitive verb that is usually followed by the preposition ‫إلى‬ ilā (al-Qurṭubī (2006). The verb in the verse above conveys the meaning of 'be initiative or take advantage of' ‫إغتنموا(‬ ‫او‬ ‫بادروا‬ badirū or ightanimū) which is different from that of race to, hasten to, or compete with (al-Andalusī 1993;Ibn Khathīr 1999;and al-Zamakhsharī 1998). Al-Andalusī (1993) elaborates that the verb conveys a collaborative work and the preposition is deleted for rhetoric purposes to convey a different meaning.
The construction in example (2) above in which the preposition is covert [VERB + PRONOUN (sub) + NOUN(2 nd obj)] indicates the sense of 'be initiative or be first good at'. In the other case where the preposition is overt, the construction [VERB + PRONOUN (sub) + PREPOSI-TION + NOUN] designates the sense of race to or hasten to which is partially different from the previous construction. In spatial terms, the existence of the preposition in the later construction profiles the relationship of ORIENTATION/ Spatial configuration in which the TR is located higher than the LM ‫عن‬ , ʿan, (away, apart from) Alienation of the TR (i.e. the most prominent entity in a spatial scene) as a resultant point from the LM (i.e. the less prominent entity ) as a reference point.
‫,في‬ fī, (in, on, at) A TR is really contained within a LM; the LMs are cognitively characterized as containers of the TRs.
ِ ‫,ل‬ lī, (to, for) A spatial scene with an oriented TR facing a highlighted LM; the direction of an object towards TRs are moving or intend to move, objects (LMs) they are interested in as the end point ,or object of interest organized as goals ‫,من‬ min, (from, of, out of) An extension of a trajectory (TR) away from an LM in that it is conceived as a constituent abstracted away mentally from the whole it belongs to.
DESTINATION or END POINT as the image schema (Johnson, 1990) is manipulated into LOCATIVE even though it is used metaphorically. In fact, the deletion of the preposition in the former construction, aims at a different relationship between its entities; a relationship that conveys the idea of a work that a person is highly motivated to carry out for the sake of more reward. An account for the seven approved translations of the verse in the QAC in example (2) reveals that there is an overt preposition exemplified in 'with, to, towards, or in'. The previously mentioned prepositions, in their primary senses, profile relationships such as accompaniment, orientation, destination and containment respectively. Such relations are not intended in the construction (i.e. verse) in question. The intention is to motivate the notion of good deeds and works with the conceptual metaphor (Fauconnier, 1994) BE FIRST AT = BE INITIATIVE/TAKE ADVANTAGE OF. To end with here, the spatial relationship that best profiles the relations between the entities of the construction in example (2) and is expressed within the whole construction above is ACCOMPANIMENT. Following Croft's (2001Croft's ( -2017 CxG, the idea of meaning as both 'construction-specific' and 'language-specific' is present clearly in examples (2) above. Example (3) below gives more elaboration for the theme of this work as it accounts for the same verb but within a different construction. ( و‬ (al-Quran: 36:66) Translit: walaw nashāu laṭamasnā ʿalā a'yunihim fa-is'tabaqū al-ṣirāṭa fannā yubṣ'irūna Trans: If it had been our Will, We could surely have blotted out their eyes; then should they have run about groping for the Path, but how could they have seen? (Ali, 1934) The verb 'to race to' ‫)استبقوا‬ istabiqū) becomes transitive due to deleting the preposition ‫إلى‬ ilā, therefore; 'path or way' ‫,)الصراط‬ al-ṣirāṭa) is assigned an accusative case mark because of APD (al-Alusī 1994;al-Zamakhsharī 1998;and al-Andalusī 1993). Ibn ʿAshūr (1984) states that the verb in question generally conveys the meaning of 'raced to' or 'initiated to', and so the whole construction [VERB + PRO-NOUN(sub) + NOUN(obj)] designates the meaning of starting racing to arrive their (i.e. those who have gone astray or disbelievers) destination safely despite the fact that their eyes are closed. The question at the end of the verse 'but how could they have seen?'(‫ون؟‬ ‫رُ‬ ِ ‫ْص‬ ‫ُب‬ ‫ي‬ ‫َّى‬ ‫ن‬ َ ‫َأ‬ ‫,ف‬ fa-annā yubṣ'irūna) is a denial question; how could someone whose eyes are bottled out or groped for find his way? The answer to the question above is that they could not, and thus they either would not find the way, or they would in their race exceed the way or Path they struggle for. Al-Andalusī (1993) points out that the verse indicates the 'impossibility of' ‫,تعجيز(‬ taʿjīz); they could not race for a path (which here stands for safety) while their eyes are blinded. Al-Zamaksharī (1998) illustrates that he does not ignore the aforementioned possibilities of interpreting the verse in concern with only one difference. He emphasizes the possibility that the 'path or way' ‫,الصراط(‬ alṣirāṭa) is not raced to, but that it is exceeded, and so the deletion of the preposition in this verse profiles a different spatial relationship of ALIENATION between the entities of the construction similar to that of the preposition ‫عن‬ ʿan (away, or away from).
It can be concluded that deleting the preposition ‫إلى‬ ilā profiles a new ALIENATION relationship (al-Dusuqi, 2006). This is implied in the context of the verse as a whole; blinded eyes cannot recognize their ways, and so exceed it. A different spatial relationship which could be profiled had the preposition not been deleted is DESTINATION or ORIENTA-TION. The verb 'raced to' (‫استبقوا‬istabiqū) is translated into 'would race to, struggle for, run about, raced along to' in the different seven approved translations of the QAC. Such translations show how the insertion of the preposition in the TT can designate dissimilar spatial relationships to that in the ST (Peate, 2012) such as the aforementioned in the discussion of this example above. The above construction as a whole in example (3) is another evident of Croft's (2001Croft's ( -2017 CxG hypothesis 'Meaning is language-specific'.
Example (4) below will present a new usage of the verb 'to race to' in a new construction. The aim here is to show how the same verb may display new spatial relations and to what extent it may validate the hypothesis that 'meaning is construction-language-specific' (Croft, 2001(Croft, -2017 (  Translit: wa-is'tabaqāl-bābawaqaddatqamīṣahu min duburin Trans: So they both raced each other to the door, and she tore his shirt from the back (Ali, 1934) In the example above, the construction ‫الباب‬ ‫استبقا‬ [VER-B(3 rd person) + PRONOUN(sub) + NOUN(obj)] indicates that the verb is a dual perfect verb followed by a subject pronoun, and that 'the door' ‫الباب(‬ al-bāba) is assigned an accusative case mark due to APD (Ibn ʿAushur 1984;al-Andalusī 1993;al-Zamakhsharī 1998;and al-Razī 2004). Al-Qurṭibī (2006:150) mentions that she (the wife of the Egyptian king) and prophet Joseph (PBUH) participated in the same action with two different goals in their minds. She wanted to prevent him from leaving the room for the sake of having illegal sexual relationships with him. On the contrary, Joseph struggled to arrive to the door first and open it in order to escape for the sake of not having that illegal sexual relationship with here as it is forbidden according to his religious regulations. They both tried to arrive first not for the sake of the arrival itself (al-Ḥalabī, 2013:471-472). Al-Zubaidī (2000) states that the preposition is deleted since there are two different purposes which imply that the goal is not identical, and that arrival to the door is not the final destination for them, but there is a latent or implicit one. The author also adds that the preposition is deleted because its existence is not compatible with the overall scene or context which necessitates the very high speed. The above explanation based on the exegeses would not be available without our knowledge of linguistic forms, culture, contextual factors and the world around us; an idea that is referred to in Cognitive Semantics (CS) as 'Meaning is encyclopedic' (Taylor, 2006). Such factors shape our interpretation and help us to conceive the meaning of constructions (Peate, 2012).
In his account for the preposition for, Mueller (2016) calls such a relationship INTERMEDIARY INTENTION. In this sense, for can highlight "an immediate goal that is associated with a more general purpose" (ibid:8). Race for is more expressive as the context implies that they were motivated by the desire to escape by Joseph and the desire of the king's wife for stopping or preventing him. It is suggested here that the approved translations in the QAC 'raced to, hastened to, or chased to' replace the preposition 'to' with 'for' because the former designates a relationship of END POINT, GOAL, or FINAL DESTINATION whereas the later designates an INTERMEDIARY INTENTION sense that indicates a hidden target within the larger target area (ibid). Again, this is a testimony that 'Universality is basically derived from shared cognition, not only from language study' (Croft, 2001) and (Geeraerts and Cuyckens, 2010).

Findings
In the first example above, it was found that there is a clear function of the deletion of the preposition which is not for example termination/destination, or other regular function, but rather a sort of relationship that is expressed directly without the need to use a preposition, where asking for guidance, direction, and stability is profiled with the conceptual metaphor ASKING FOR MORE GUIDANCE = LONGING FOR MORE PREVALIGE.
In the second example the deletion of the preposition was to motivate the notion of good deeds and works with the conceptual metaphor which is (BE FIRST AT = BE INI-TIATIVE/TAKE ADVANTAGE OF), thus the spatial relationship that best profiles the relations between the entities of the construction in example (2) and is expressed within the whole construction above is ACCOMPANIMENT. The function of the deletion of both examples is different form the origin meaning of the verb and work as advanced ability to convey a meaning that fit in the verse.
In the third example, the preposition ‫إلى‬ ilā profiles a new ALIENATION relationship which is different form the normal function of the verb if the preposition was still in place, it is as saying "blinded eyes cannot recognize their ways, and so exceed it". The verb 'raced to' ‫استبقوا(‬ istabiqū) is translated into 'would race to, struggle for, run about, raced along to' in the different seven approved translations of the QAC, and in the cognitive view here of the verse it was clear that the function of the deletion served a definite purpose and conveyed a specific meaning to the reader.
The fourth example of the data collected and analyzed in the given verse showed that the meaning conveyed was different form the original function of the verb, where the race is for the same goal when the preposition is in its place, but with the deletion it gave a new meaning that the two persons racing to the door had two different goals to reach it. The deletion again served a specific meaning to convey to the reader of the verse. The data analyses showed how the deletion served a specific functionality, with a cognitive purpose to reach for a perfect understanding of the reader.

CONCLUSION
Being cognizant that not every linguistic phenomenon can be interpreted in a usage-based account, meaning is underspecified when represented in language, and the inability of language data to conceive what mentally goes in a communicative situation as sorts of limitations to any linguistic analysis, the present study addresses prepositional deletion in the Quran. Specifically, it accounted for deleting the preposition ‫إلى‬ ilā from some verses in the Quran; a phenomenon usually referred to as APD. The study was conducted within the CL perspective and its relevant approaches namely CxG. Notably, prepositional deletion poses greater difficulty to language users in general and readers of the Quran in particular as it may be considered as a sort of deviation since the grammatically categorized intransitive verbs within the constructions in question are not followed by their customary preposition. In all cases, the deletion assigned a different case mark for the following noun, indicated non-identical thematic roles, and designated different spatial relationships between constructional entities. Having all of this in mind, the findings of this study revealed that prepositional deletion has led to different conceptualization consequences of altering spatial relationships in example 3 and NON-IDENTICAL TARGETS in example 4. Table (5) below illustrates how conceptualization differs due to the alternation of the spatial relationships.
It also finds out that the degree of loyalty to the spatial scene in the Target Text (TT) varies from partially loyal in some translation to completely disloyal in others. These two findings are testimony for Croft's (2001Croft's ( -2017 hypothesis that meaning is not only construction-specific, but also language-specific. Also, it showed that Peate's (2012) Translator Spatial Loyalty is a vital component to an ideal and perfect comprehension process, and that it is shared cognition, not only language study, that basically derive cognition. This research explained a linguistic phenomenon in the Quran which was identified only on the part of the Quran interpretation, but not from the perspective of linguistics, thus this study provided a linguistic and semantically explanation of the phenomenon existing in the Quran, and provided a clear cases and examples with a linguist approach of the phenomena. Few researches approached the case and this study provided a guide for more studies on similar cases in the Arabic language.
Future research should keep in mind addressing other preposition that exemplify for the linguistic phenomenon in hand for the purpose of generalizing the results and findings. Also, addressing other parts of speech (i.e. noun, verb, adjectives) will also be highly desirable. Table 6. The Seven approved translation of examples 1-4 in the QAC

Ex
No.