An uzbek glossary

AN UZBEK GLOSSARY

Compiled by Hervé Guérin

To my family

© 2002-2003 Hervé Guérin

Last updated: 1 May 2003


Contents

Arrangement and Usage i

The object of this glossary i

General arrangement i

First column vi

Second column vii

Third column xi

Fourth column xii

Materials used for this glossary xiii

Basic Concepts 1

Entities and Existence 1

Relations 5

Category and Order 9

Quantity and Numbers 15

Space and Time 22

Size 22

Shape 25

Location 27

Time and Duration 33

Events and Evolution 39

Forces and Motion 47

Motion 47

Forces and Effects 54

Processes 56

Matter and Nature 64

Properties 64

Substances 70

Nature 76

Life and Humans 81

Vital Functions 81

Body 88

Plants 93

Animals 98

Humans 102

Health and Medicine 104

Perception and Cognition 111

Perception 111

Mind 114

Knowledge 121

Meaning & Spirit 131

Opinion 131

Meaning 137

Communication 146

Art 151

Spirit 156

Character and Emotions 161

Character 161

Emotions 166

Action and Modality 176

Will, Ability and Necessity 176

Acts and Results 181

Circumstances 191

Manner 195

Attitudes 200

Behaviour 200

Feelings 206

Self-Image 211

Authority 214

Appraisal 218

Community 222

Family 222

Social Life 227

Society 232

State and Politics 240

Conflict and Justice 245

Conflict 245

Justice 252

Work and Possession 256

Possession and Exchange 256

Work and Production 261

Economy 271

Daily Life (I) 278

Housing 278

Objects and Tools 286

Clothing 298

Daily Life (II) 305

Food 305

Transport 315

Leasure 320

Locutions 323

Forms of Address 323

Greetings 325

Leave-taking 327

Introductions 328

Invitations 329

Requests 331

Apologies 332

Agreement and Disagreement 333

Thanks 335

Congratulations and Wishes 336

Phone Conversation 338

Miscellaneous 339

Proper Names 342

Places and Peoples 342

Arrangement and Usage

The object of this glossary

To make it easier for the student of the Uzbek language to acquire its basic lexicon. To achieve that, lexical items are presented according to their semantic relationships, and their syntactic category and behaviour are indicated as well.

Such a glossary will of course prove useful only in the context of a steady practice of the language, with regular use of other oral or written materials. This is all the more true that no example of use in context has been given here.

What this glossary does not deal with

- Phonetic features possibly not reflected in current spelling (eg. dialectal distinctions between /o/ and /ö/, /u/ and /ü/, consonant assimilations).

- Etymological origins of the lexical items (Turkish stock, Iranian, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and western languages).

- Antonymy relationships between lexical items.

- Dictionary functions. A program has not come yet to make it possible to search from English to Uzbek or from Uzbek to English.

General arrangement

Principles

Lexical items, words and compound expressions are grouped into larger semantic fields. Each semantic field comes with a table, each line of which containing a head-word and lexical items derived from it. The tables are made out of 4 columns. The first column contains the head-word and its derived lexical items, the second column their syntactic conditions of use, the third column their meaning expressed in English, and the fourth column contains links toward other acceptances of the word or its derivations.

Lexical items

The lexical items which have been selected are mainly words, root words or derived words, but may also be compound expressions as well as some of the most used collocations.

For example:

TUG’- tug’il- tug’ma

v.t v.int tug’ilish tug’ilgan kun(+i) adj

give birth to be born birth birthday innate, hereditary, inborn

Social

TUG’- is a transitive verb, and is also the word root from which two other words are derived by lexical suffixation, tug’il- and tug’ma.
tug’ilish is not a proper lexical item, but is a nominal deverbative derived from the verb tug’il-, and to which corresponds in English a word as such (birth). Very few of this last kind of derivations are included in the glossary.
tug’ilgan kuni is a compound expression, frequently used, which corresponds also to a single word in English.

Lexical items derived from a given head-word are grouped together in a single line in the table, as far as they belong to the same semantic field.

A derived word may in term serves as a head-word for other derived lexical items. For instance, BIL-, know, bilim, knowledge, bilimdon, of great learning.

The most basic or common words are marked in bold face (e.g. tug'il-).

Semantic fields

Several semantic fields have been distinguished, each of them making up a table. These semantic fields may be themselves grouped into fields at a superior level, up to that of the HTML page.

The divisions and subdivisions defining the semantic fields are following the general lines adopted in current thesaurus.

A lexical item may very often pertain to only one semantic field. For instance, BULBUL, nightingale, appears in only one semantic field, namely ‘Animals’. But quite frequently also, a given lexical item will pertain to several distinct semantic fields. An example is SABZI, carrot, which appears in the two following semantic fields, ‘Plants’ and ‘Food’. Rather than selecting arbitrarily the unique field where to place such a lexical item, both semantic fields are kept for the item.

A given lexical item may have several correlated yet distinct meanings, which can pertain to different semantic fields. For instance, YUZ has as a first meaning, (human) face, belonging to the semantic field ‘Body’, and as a derived meaning, surface, face, belonging to the field ‘Shape’. Cross-references between different occurrences of a same lexical item are implemented by hypertext links.

Within a given semantic field, items are grouped as much as possible according to their semantic proximity. These semantic fields are relatively large groupings, which may be in turn divided into several sub-fields. These divisions are materialized by empty lines in the table.

A given word may appear in two different sub-field within a same large semantic field. For instance, KECHA has two distinct meanings, night and yesterday, both in the field ‘Time’, appearing then in two distinct sub-fields. Links are cross-referencing these two meanings.

It must be clear that any grouping and sorting according to semantic criteria is more or less arbitrary.

Links between lexical items

The most common configurations are as follows:

Simple items

1)

Semantic field X

AAA

iiii

-> Y

Semantic field Y

AAA

iiii

-> X

Item ‘AAA’, whose meaning is ‘iiii’, belongs to both semantic fields ‘X’ and ‘Y’. None is predominant for determining ‘AAA’’s semantic membership. 

2)

Semantic field X

AAA

iiii

Semantic field Y

AAA

iiii

-> X

Item ‘AAA’, whose meaning is ‘iiii’, belongs to both semantic fields ‘X’ and ‘Y’. Semantic field ‘X’ is predominant for determining ‘AAA’’s semantic membership. A link from ‘Y’ to ‘X’ is then relevant, but not its reverse.

Items with several meanings

1)

Semantic field X

AAA

iiii jjjj

-> Y

Semantic field Y

AAA

iiii jjjj

-> X

Item ‘AAA’ has two distinct meanings, ‘iiii’ and ‘jjjj’, ‘iiii’ being its original (or main) meaning, and ‘jjjj’ an other (or derived) meaning. ‘iiii’ belongs to semantic field ‘X’ and ‘jjjj’ to ‘Y’. Derived meaning ‘jjjj’ is here also relevant for ‘X’, and for meaning ‘iiii’, link is strong enough with meaning ‘jjjj’ to appear also in semantic field ‘Y’.

2)

Semantic X

AAA

iiii jjjj

-> Y

Semantic Y

AAA

jjjj

-> X

In this case, original meaning ‘iiii’ cannot belong to semantic field ‘Y’, or link with meaning ‘jjjj’ is not strong enough. 

Head-word and words derived from it

Only derived words belonging directly to the same semantic field as the head-word appear in a cell of a table.

As for the different meanings of a given lexical item, the relations between a head-word and words derived from it may form different configurations.

1)

Semantic X

AAA aaass

iiii jjjj

->Y

Semantic field Y

AAA aaass

iiii jjjj

-> X

Head-word ‘AAA’ with meaning ‘iiii’, derived word ‘aaass’ with meaning ‘jjjj’. Head-word and derived word belong both to semantic fields ‘X’ and ‘Y’. This is not the most frequent case.

2)

Semantic field X

AAA aaass

iiii jjjj

-> Y

Semantic field Y

AAASS

jjjj

-> X

There is proximity in meaning between the head-word and its derivation, but head-word ‘AAA’ does not belong to semantic field ‘Y’. Derived word ‘aaass’ is close enough from its head-word to appear in semantic field ‘X’ to which the latter belongs. In ‘X’, a link for ‘aaass’ towards ‘Y’ leads to a major meaning of that derived word. In ‘Y’, the link towards ‘X’ make the head-word available to its derived word.

3)

Semantic field X

AAA

iiii

Semantic field Y

AAASS

jjjj

-> X

Head-word and derived word belong to two distinct semantic fields, and having in ‘X’ the derived word appearing with its head-word as well as having in ‘Y’ the head-word next to its derived word would not be relevant. Only a link in ‘Y’ towards the head-word is provided.

4)

Semantic field X

AAA

iiii

Semantic field Y

AAASS

jjjj

The relationship between the head-word and the word derived from it is weak and not mentioned in the glossary.

In all cases links between items are set more or less arbitrarily.

Selected lexical items

The basic vocabulary has been selected, with a distinction between two levels, items or meanings of an item marked in bold face being the most basic or common.

Without any frequency list, such a selection is highly subjective.

A common meaning of an item is marked in bold face only in the table corresponding to its semantic field. When such a meaning appears in an other semantic field, it is not marked so.