A comparative study on the use of of, on, and about: Focusing on the meaning of concerning

This study based on data from COCA investigates the different semantic properties of of, on, and about, which are especially used as the meaning of ‘concerning’ in actual language use. The use of of, on, and about reveals subtle differences in semantic features as follows: First, in terms of syntactic structures, of was identified as a highly grammatical preposition, expressing various relationships between nouns. On, by contrast, exhibited relatively weaker grammatical functions, while about appeared to be more contextually restricted compared to the other prepositions. Second, in the collocates formed with prepositional governors, on demonstrated the strongest lexical semantic function, representing ‘focus and concentration’. In contrast, of emerged as the most grammatical preposition with a less specific lexical meaning. Third, through the collocates formed with complements, about was found to carry the most general, physical, and universal semantic features, whereas of exhibited the most abstract, specific, and formal semantic traits.