THE LEXICAL-SEMANTIC PROPERTIES OF UNITS FORMED BY PREFIXATION IN THE UZBEK LANGUAGE
- Authors
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Narzullayeva Muborak Sherzod qizi
Independent Researcher, Gulistan State University, Uzbekistan
Author
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- Keywords:
- Uzbek language, prefixation, lexical semantics, derivational meaning, componential analysis, evaluative polarity, lexicalisation, semantic drift, privative derivation, borrowed affixes.
- Abstract
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The article examines the lexical semantics of Uzbek words derived by means of the borrowed prefixal formatives be-, no-, ser-, ham-, bad-, kam-, g‘ayri-, bo-, ba, xush- and their international counterparts. Working from lexicographic material and from componential analysis of the derived units, the study establishes four semantic properties that characterise this class as a whole. First, Uzbek prefixation is modificational rather than transpositional: it enriches the lexical meaning of the base without transferring it into another lexico-grammatical class. Second, the inventory is unusually strongly polarised along the evaluative axis, with the polarity residing in the formative itself rather than in the base, which makes prefixed units a preferred resource of expressive and axiologically loaded registers. Third, the class is internally stratified with respect to compositionality: the older Persian-Arabic layer shows extensive semantic drift and idiomatisation, whereas the international layer remains fully compositional, so that degree of lexicalisation functions as a reliable index of derivational age. Fourth, formatives that receive a single gloss in dictionaries prove on closer inspection to be distributionally and semantically differentiated, the clearest instance being be- and no-, whose selection is conditioned by the semantic type of the base. A semantic classification of the inventory into eleven classes is proposed, and the mechanisms of semantic shift operative in the class are described.
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- Published
- 2026-06-09
- Issue
- Vol. 2 No. 5 (2026)
- Section
- Articles
- License
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
