Semantic aspect of speech verbs in modern English

Ganbarova Nurlana Eldeniz

In the presented article, the components of several thematic groups of English speech verbs are briefly considered, including certain subgroups. First of all, it was established that they represent an organized and complex lexico-semantic unity. However, their semantic content does not go beyond the core concepts: the meanings of speaking, telling, talking, discussing are always and invariably postulated. Obviously, the English verbs of speech, as follows from the etymology, are directly related to speech-production. On this basis, for real linguistic analysis, we have identified four main verbs: "to say", "to tell", "to speak" and "to talk". By their outward formal features, they are similar to each other. However, the three types of periphery highlighted in the article - near, distant and extreme, depending on the degree of distance from the core of the main verb of speech - indicate their common semantic significance. Therefore, the author of the article points to a fairly wide range of components adjacent to the named central verbs.

Keywords:verbs of speech, verbal components, constituents, linguistic features, linguistic environment, linguistic units, definitions, periphery, cognitive linguistics.