SEMANTICALLY RELATED VERBS OF SPEAKING IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN

Verbs of speaking are widely represented in modern English and Russian. The group of semantically related speaking verbs in English includes: to say, to speak, to tell, and to talk ; in Russian, this group can include the following words: говорить, сказать, рассказывать, and разговаривать . In both languages, the semantic group of verbs of speaking is much broader and is not limited to the verbs listed above. A significant number of synonyms for speaking appear and disappear under the influence of language style and usage in various historical periods. At the same time, the above-mentioned verbs, which appeared at the time of the emergence of the language, have not only preserved their original meanings but have also significantly expanded them. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify the features of the development of the semantic meaning of verbs of speaking in English and Russian from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives. The relevance of this study lies in the need to examine the semantic meaning of verbs of speaking in both languages, as they are widely used across a wide variety of subject areas. Data from the British National Corpus show that the four synonymous verbs occur in both spoken and written English and are used in the following subject fields: literature, religion, mathematics, economics and commerce, linguistics, law, telecommunications, and others. According to the Russian National Corpus, these Russian speaking verbs occur in areas such as: fiction, journalism, everyday speech, educational and scientific literature, church and theological texts, electronic communications, official and business documents, advertising, and industrial and technical writing. In addition, these verbs are among the first 1,000 most frequently used words in modern English and Russian.