Prepositions such as in and on convey not only spatial relationships between objects, but also abstract relationships, such as ‘Mary is in love’ and ‘Tim’s on a roll’. Although such uses are often thought to be purely idiomatic, we hypothesized that these abstract, non-spatial relationships might preserve one specific aspect of prepositions’ spatial meaning: the degree to which the figure or the ground controls the figure-ground relationship (Coventry, 1992; Coventry, Carmichael & Garrod, 1994; Feist & Gentner, 1997, 1998, 2003). We found that locus of control distinguishes in and on in common abstract metaphorical contexts (e.g., in love/on a roll), matched abstract contexts (e.g., in/on time), and novel abstract contexts. These findings suggest that prepositions retain aspects of their spatial meaning when used abstractly.