COMPARATIVE STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF PROVERBS IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK LANGUAGES

Abstrak

This study presents a comparative structural analysis of proverbs in English and Uzbek, focusing on their syntactic, semantic, and stylistic features within the framework of modern Linguistics and Paremiology. Proverbs, as concise and culturally embedded expressions, reflect the collective wisdom and worldview of a speech community. The research aims to identify both universal and language-specific structural patterns by examining a representative corpus of proverbs from the two languages. The analysis reveals that English proverbs tend to favor fixed syntactic patterns, including simple declarative sentences and parallel constructions, while Uzbek proverbs frequently exhibit more flexible syntactic structures, often incorporating ellipsis, metaphorical expressions, and rhythmic elements. From a semantic perspective, both languages employ figurative devices such as metaphor and analogy; however, the cultural references and symbolic imagery differ significantly, reflecting distinct socio-cultural contexts. The study also highlights the role of binary opposition, repetition, and rhyme as common stylistic devices contributing to the memorability and didactic function of proverbs. By applying comparative and descriptive research methods, this paper demonstrates that despite typological differences between English and Uzbek, there exist notable structural similarities that point to universal cognitive and communicative principles underlying proverb formation. The findings contribute to cross-linguistic studies, intercultural communication, and translation theory, offering insights into how linguistic structures encode cultural knowledge.