PLURALITY IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK: A COMPARATIVE MORPHOSYNTACTIC AND FUNCTIONAL-SEMANTIC ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT This study investigates the morphological and syntactic expression of the grammatical category of plurality in English and Uzbek, with a particular emphasis on its functional-semantic properties and discourse-level implications. The concept of plurality, as a universal grammatical category, manifests differently across languages depending on their typological structure and communicative conventions. English, as an analytic language, predominantly utilizes inflectional strategies for plural marking through both regular suffixation (e.g., -s, -es) and irregular forms (e.g., children, mice). In contrast, Uzbek, an agglutinative language, consistently employs the suffix -lar to indicate plurality across various grammatical categories, including nouns, pronouns, and verbs. The analysis draws on a contrastive morphosyntactic framework to explore structural and distributional variations, such as pluralization in noun phrases, pronominal systems, and possessive constructions (e.g., students’ books vs. talabalarning kitoblari). Moreover, the study extends beyond formal grammar to examine how plural forms function contextually in pragmatic and sociolinguistic domains. Particular attention is given to context-dependent uses of plural morphology in Uzbek, where -lar frequently conveys politeness, collective address, social hierarchy, and emotional proximity—functions not systematically marked in English. Methodologically, the study adopts a comparative-descriptive approach supported by corpus-based examples from both languages, drawing data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the British National Corpus (BNC), and the Uzbek National Corpus. The theoretical framework integrates insights from linguistic typology, functional grammar, and sociolinguistics [3, B.45], providing a comprehensive lens through which plural constructions are analyzed. The findings reveal not only the typological divergence between the predominantly analytic structure of English and the richly agglutinative system of Uzbek, but also the nuanced sociocultural roles that plurality assumes within each language community. The research underscores the importance of recognizing plurality as both a grammatical and cultural phenomenon, deeply embedded in social norms, politeness strategies, and communicative intent. Ultimately, this cross-linguistic comparison contributes to broader discussions in linguistic typology, second language acquisition, and intercultural communication, offering valuable insights for theoretical linguists, educators, and translators alike. Key words: plurality, inflectional morphology, functional semantics, sociolinguistic functions, possessive constructions, cross-linguistic comparison, typological divergence