LEXICAL SEMANTIC MEANING AND CONTEXTUAL INTERPRETATION: A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF UZBEK AND ENGLISH

Abstract

This study investigates the intricate relationship between lexical semantic meaning and contextual interpretation within the framework of pragmatics, drawing on examples from both Uzbek and English. Lexical semantics, which addresses the meaning encoded in individual words and morphemes, does not operate in isolation; rather, it is constantly shaped, modified, and sometimes radically altered by the communicative context in which utterances occur. The present paper explores how pragmatic mechanisms - including conversational implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and deixis - interact with lexical meaning to produce the intended communicative significance. Using a comparative approach, the study identifies convergent and divergent patterns in the two languages, highlighting the challenges faced by translators, language learners, and computational linguists alike. The findings suggest that a strict separation between semantic and pragmatic analysis is untenable, and that a unified, context-sensitive framework is essential for accurate linguistic description. The paper concludes with implications for language pedagogy, translation studies, and natural language processing.