The use of で and に with 座る


I came across this example in Genki I

> .....まどの近く **に** 座っています

And I was wondering about the use of に here and if we can replace it with で to
make

> ......まどの近く **で** 座っています

Is it correct? Please explain if possible. And thank you in advance.




For 座る, the place where (or object on which) one sits is marked with に. I
would say that

  * ～の近くで座る is **unnatural**
  * ～の近くに座る is **natural**.

### Explanation

Verbs which are _inherently linked to a location_ — such as 行く, 住む, いる, etc. —
have this location marked by **に**.

Verbs for which the location is only circumstantial (i.e. additional
information) — such as 食べる, 遊ぶ, 勉強する, etc. — have this location marked by
**で**.

### Numerical evidence

The Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ) contains no
instances of 近くで＋座る. It does contain some instances of で＋座る, but none of these
use で to mark the location where the sitting takes place...

* * *

### Case study 寝る

One interesting verb to look at for the difference between に and で is 寝る. The
numbers in BCCWJ are ambiguous:

  * に＋寝る `1,337 results`
  * で＋寝る `1,222 results`

However, 寝る has two common meanings

  1. 横たわる _to lie down_
  2. 眠る _to sleep_

and the choice between に and で is not as ambiguous as the rough numbers would
suggest. For 寝る "to sleep", the location is circumstantial/additional
information and should be marked with で; for 寝る "to lie down", the location is
inherent to the meaning of the verb and should be marked with に.

> A： Cさんまだ起きている？  
>  B： いや、ベンチ **で** 寝ている。

