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CHAPTER II LEXICAL-SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF UZBEK AND ENGLISH LEGAL TEXTS INCLUDING ACTIONS STRATEGY OF STATE DEVELOPMENT 2.1. Lexical-semantic features of legal texts in English Lexical semantics (also called lexicosemantics) is the study of word
meanings as a subfield of linguistic semantics. It includes the study of
the meaning structure of words, how they function in grammar and
composition, and the relationship between specific word meanings and
uses.
In lexical semantics, units of analysis are lexical units, which contain not
only words, but also smaller units such as additional words or compound
words and phrases. Lexical units include the catalog of words in the
language, the lexicon. Lexical semantics examines how the meaning of
lexical items relates to the structure of language or syntax. This is called
the syntax-semantics interface.
The study of lexical semantics examines: • classification and decomposition of lexical compounds
• Differences and similarities in lexical semantic structure between languages
• relation of lexical meaning to sentence meaning and syntax. Lexical units, also called syntactic atoms, can stand on their own, such as root
words or parts of compound words, or they can be linked to other units, such as
prefixes and suffixes. The first is called free morphemes, and the second is called
bound morphemes[Di Sciullo, Anne-Marie; Williams, Edwin (1987). On the
definition of word. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.].
They belong to a narrow range of meaning (semantic fields) and can be combined
with each other to form new denotations. Cognitive semantics is a linguistic
paradigm/framework that has received most research on lexical semantics since the
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1980s, introducing innovations such as prototype theory, conceptual metaphors,
and frame semantics.
