A COMPARATIVE SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF LEXICAL UNITS DENOTING FALSEHOOD IN THE ENGLISH AND UZBEK LANGUAGES

This thesis examines lexical units denoting falsehood in English and Uzbek from a comparative semantic perspective. The study focuses on such English units as lie, falsehood, deception, mislead, fabricate, fake, counterfeit and slander, and Uzbek units such as yolg‘on, aldov, aldamoq, soxta, qalbaki, uydirma, tuhmat, bo‘hton, hiyla and firib. The analysis is based on lexical-semantic, componential and comparative methods. The results show that the central semantic nucleus in both languages is formed by lie/yolg‘on, while the peripheral zones include deception, misleading, fabrication, falsification, slander and hypocritical behaviour. English tends to differentiate lying, misleading and legally marked false accusation more explicitly, whereas Uzbek falsehood-related vocabulary often carries stronger moral, interpersonal and social evaluation.