The Normative Role of Morphology in Legal Texts (Evidence from the Agglutinative Structure of Uzbek)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51699/cajlpc.v7i3.1573Keywords:
Agglutinative Structure, Normative Inference, Uzbek Legal Discourse, Legal Interpretation, Forensic Linguistics, Morphological Analysis, Syntactic Scope, Deontic Logic, Tax Code, Terminological Diffusion, Linguo-Logical Expertise, Morphological Layer, Personal Income TaxAbstract
This article examines the formation of normative meaning in Uzbek legal texts in relation to the agglutinative structure of the language. The study proceeds from the assumption that a legal norm is not interpreted only through legal terms or the general propositional content of a sentence. In Uzbek legal discourse, affixes, voice forms, possessive markers, postpositional constructions, conditional forms, and modal expressions may also participate in shaping legal meaning. The empirical material is drawn from Articles 239, 248, and 370–377 of the Tax Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The analysis applies the working sequence “agglutinative structure à inference à legal interpretation”. First, the relevant morphological form is identified. Then the implicit or partially implicit normative inference generated by that form is reconstructed. Finally, its deontic status is assessed in terms of obligation, permission, prohibition, or discretionary force. The article discusses such units as realizatsiya qilish “realization/supply”, aniqlanadi “is determined”, hisobga olinadi “is taken into account”, mehnatga haq to‘lash tarzidagi daromadlar “income in the form of remuneration for labour”, mulkiy daromadlar “property income”, moddiy naf tarzidagi daromadlar “income in the form of material benefit”, and boshqa daromadlar “other income”. These examples reveal several interpretive phenomena: syntactic scope ambiguity, interpretive collision, inferential expansion, terminological diffusion, and referential discontinuity. The findings suggest that the morphological layer in Uzbek legal discourse should not be treated as a secondary grammatical feature. Rather, it functions as an active mechanism through which legal meaning is constructed, delimited, and sometimes made open to competing interpretations. The study therefore argues for a closer integration of morphological analysis, inferential reconstruction, and deontic evaluation in the linguistic analysis of Uzbek normative texts.
References
J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1962.
V. K. Bhatia, Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London, U.K.: Longman, 1993.
M. Coulthard and A. Johnson, An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence. London, U.K.: Routledge, 2007.
T. Endicott, Vagueness in Law. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2000.
J. Gibbons, Forensic Linguistics: An Introduction to Language in the Justice System. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
H. P. Grice, “Logic and conversation,” in Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3, P. Cole and J. L. Morgan, Eds. New York, NY, USA: Academic Press, 1975, pp. 41–58.
L. Johanson, Turkic. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
A. N. Kononov, Grammatika sovremennogo uzbekskogo literaturnogo yazyka. Moscow–Leningrad, USSR: Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1960.
A. Marmor, The Language of Law. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2014.
D. Mellinkoff, The Language of the Law. Boston, MA, USA: Little, Brown & Co., 1963.
A. Nurmonov, O‘zbek tili morfologiyasi. Toshkent, O‘zbekiston: O‘qituvchi, 1990.
O‘zbekiston Respublikasi, Soliq kodeksi, yangi tahrir, Dec. 30, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://lex.uz/docs/-4674902
E. Qilichev, O‘zbek tilining amaliy stilistikasi. Toshkent, O‘zbekiston: O‘qituvchi, 1992.
J. R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
D. Sperber and D. Wilson, Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press, 1986.
P. M. Tiersma, Legal Language. Chicago, IL, USA: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
G. H. von Wright, “Deontic logic,” Mind, vol. 60, no. 237, pp. 1–15, 1951.
