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THE FUNCTIONS OF WORDS AND WORD COMBINATIONS IN THE STRUCTURE
OF THE TEXT
Madina Khaydarovna Boboyeva
PhD, Associate Professor of the Department of Western
Languages, Oriental University, Uzbekistan
Annotation :
This article analyzes the main functions of words and word combinations in the
text structure from a linguistic point of view, highlights the functional functions of lexical,
grammatical and stylistic means in the text, and expresses how they affect the integrity,
consistency and semantic coherence of the text. Words, as the smallest but meaningfully
independent units of the text, play an important role in the construction of the text. Also, word
combinations serve to enrich the content of language units, clarify and give stylistic diversity to
the text. During the study, the syntactic and semantic functions of words and word combinations
are revealed based on real examples taken from the text. This article can be a useful scientific
resource for researchers engaged in text linguistics, stylistics and applied linguistics.
Key words:
word, phrase, text, text linguistics, lexical unit, grammatical function, semantic
functions, stylistic device, text integrity, coherence.
Introduction
Any text is formed by the arrangement of elements existing in the language, that is, words and
word combinations, based on a certain logical and grammatical system. In linguistics, the
concept of text is considered as a multi-layered unit that requires a comprehensive analysis.
Therefore, the role of words and word combinations in the structure of the text, the functions
they perform in terms of content and form, is recognized as a separate scientific direction in
linguistics.
The main function of language is to express thought and convey it to others. In this process,
words are the initial link of thought, and word combinations are involved as a means of
expanding and clarifying it. Each word and word combination has a certain syntactic, semantic
or stylistic load in the structure of the text and serves the general content of the text. Words are
not just separate units in the text, but sentences are formed through them, and sentences, in turn,
form the text. Therefore, studying the functions of words and word combinations in the text is an
important step in understanding the mechanism of language functioning.
In modern linguistics, various functions of words and word combinations are studied within the
framework of such areas as text linguistics, stylistics, and pragmatics. In particular, the role of
language units that ensure the integrity, consistency, conciseness, and semantic smoothness of
the text is of particular importance. For example, connectives, auxiliaries, pronouns, synonyms,
and synonymous word combinations perform the function of connecting, indicating, repeating, or
introducing detail in the text. Through them, a certain connection, semantic clarity, and stylistic
consistency are created in the text.
Word combinations, on the other hand, participate in the text as a means of expressing various
relationships such as spatial, temporal, cause, purpose, and condition, thereby strengthening the
logical justification of the text. This is of particular importance in the analysis of text structures,
especially in the analysis of speech, translation practice and in-depth study of stylistic devices.
Main part:
This article studies the syntactic, semantic and stylistic functions of words and word
combinations in the text. The study highlights how they are used as a tool, how they affect the
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structure of the text, and their role in determining the style of speech.
The study of this topic is of significant scientific and practical importance for many fields, such
as linguistics, text analysis, literary criticism, and translation studies. At the same time, deep
scientifically based approaches in this area also serve for text composition, analysis and effective
language learning.
To understand the nature of a word combination (hereinafter referred to as a word combination),
it is necessary to study its communicative capabilities, in addition to its nominative properties.
The fact that a word combination is a multifaceted phenomenon, its activation in the
communicative environment is clearly visible in the task of creating a text. Indeed, the
communicative value of language units is determined by their role in text creation, their
participation in the communication process. Of course, word units also actively participate in this
process. The qualitative indicator of the text-creativity value of a word combination is
determined by which of the text categorical signs it is associated with, while the quantitative
indicators are related to the amount of a word combination used in the text and to what extent it
“cooperates” with other linguistic units within the text.
It is important to study the aspects of the communicative content of the text related to the
structural-semantic properties of the means that form it. Phrase combinations also enter into a
functional-semantic relationship with the text in which they are used, and therefore it is possible
to analyze them within the framework of the triad “structure - semantics - function”. Such an
analysis requires distinguishing the functions that phrase combinations perform at the sentence
and text levels. Of course, some of the functions that phrase combinations perform in the
sentence structure are repeated within the text, taking on a different appearance and content. For
example, modality in the sentence structure has its place in the formation of the text modality
field.
Research conducted within the framework of modern linguistics indicates that the foundation of
text creation begins at the stage of “small syntax”, and the leading role in this is determined by
the passage of events related to the phrase system. As the research of linguists such as
V.N.Teliya, T.A. Tulina, N.Q. Turniyozov, A.M. Bushuy shows, it is at the word combination
stage that changes occur in the initial form and functions of lexical and syntactic units, and new
similarities and differences arise. In this case, there is a need to characterize word combinations
not as a simple “building material” for enriching the grammatical pattern of the vocabulary, but
as a unit that forms the text. Thus, the emergence of word combinations should be perceived
within the framework of text formation, since its creation is associated with the purpose of
transmitting information and establishing communicative relations.
According to V.Gak, within the text, word combinations serve to fill the “deficiency” of the
“primary” system, that is, the lexical and grammatical systems. It should be noted that the
functions performed by word combinations belonging to different groups in the text may differ
from each other, in particular, root word combinations perform nominative and expressive
functions at the same time, while analytical combinations combine nominative and structural
functions.
Word combinations also have their own role in text formation. In this regard, the relationship
between the semantics of word combinations and the content categories of the text deserves
special attention. We can easily see this relationship, which is quite constant, in the relationship
between text referentiality and nominative combinations. We also notice similar semantic
connections in the participation of expressive word combinations in the expression of text
modality.
In addition, it is obvious that some types of word combinations are also connected with other
categorical signs included in the content of the text. Some researchers consider the structural and
formal properties of the text and word combinations to be phenomena that are far from each
other and that it is impossible to consider them in one dimension. However, as special studies
and our observations testify, the word combination also has its place in the formation of
structural categories of the text. One of the criteria indicating the structural cooperation of the
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text and the word combination is the characteristic of both of them with the properties of
completeness and integrity. The structural integrity of the word combination is manifested in its
use in the text. In this case, the criterion proving the structural integrity of the word combination
is the inability of the leading part of the combination to be used as an independent component in
the structure of the speech structure.
For example: (1)
The whole of his company were lying down
(Huxley. 1991: 79) va (2)
Clouds of
strident gulls hovered noisily overhead
(Osborne. 1999: 39) the resulting transforms, when we
leave only the leading components of the word combinations in sentences, can turn into
sentences with incomplete or contradictory content. (1)
→ The whole were lying down; (2) →
Clouds hovered noisily overhead.
The fact that the valence of the words that come in place of the
leading components in these transforms is not fully activated causes the speech structures to be
not only content-wise but also structurally-wise incomplete.
In some cases, it is also necessary to refer to the non-linguistic, lexical knowledge base to
determine the influence of the integrity of word combinations on the structural-semantic integrity
of the text. For example, ray of real paint word combination must be used in its entirety in the
text, otherwise, the semantic construction of the speech structure will take on a different form:
– A ray of real paint had been spilled into the groove
(Sillitoe. 1989: 76). It is known that the
meaning of the word ray does not contain the seme
“liquid substance”
and therefore it cannot be
combined with the word spill. Therefore, in the transformation of the above speech structure
“A
ray had been spilled into the groove”
, a semantic imbalance occurs. The semantic and structural
features of the text ensure the activation of communicative-pragmatic categories. One of such
categories is communicative intention - goal. The semantic properties of word combinations also
have their place in the expression of such a communicative category. This is especially evident in
texts of a small genre (anecdotes, proverbs, sayings, advertising texts):
– Yoon with the toys, old
man with the pillows; a bad corn promise is better than a good lawsuit; a bird in the hand is
worth two in the bush; man lacks the wisdom to calm down, etc.
Regardless of the size of the text or its style, the word combination is of general importance for
the text, expressing its theme and idea. The fulfillment of this function of the word combination
is realized in its use as the title of works of art, scientific, journalistic texts:
Economy of
Uzbekistan; Colors of Summer; Business Partnership; Scope of Cooperation; Spring Festival;
Classes with Multimedia; Pandemic News.
In conclusion,
it should be said that word combinations take their place in communicative texts
as “ready-made material” that complexly designates objective phenomena and evaluates them.
These compounds, which form a system of semantic-denotative and various connotative
semantics of the content sphere, play an important role in the formation of the text. After all, any
abstract form, semantic-syntactic model can only have a clear, active meaning in the text. At the
same time, it is necessary to resort to different approaches in studying the many features of word
combinations that are manifested in the text. Units of the language system, being activated in the
text, become a communication unit. The text is a complete structure formed on the basis of
syntactic, semantic and pragmatic connections of linguistic units. Text construction is the result
of complex linguistic activity, in which various units actively participate. One of the speech
structures that are distinguished in the text is complex speech acts or, according to tradition, a
suprasentential syntactic unit, a structure that has received the term “higher-level syntactic
whole”. Although the issue of the participation of word combinations in such complex speech
devices has attracted the attention of researchers in recent years, this issue still remains among
the least studied issues of text syntax.
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