Boundedness and Unboundedness in Verb Semantics: a Comparative Study of English and Uzbek

This article examines the semantic meanings of boundedness and unboundedness in English and Uzbek verb systems. Boundedness refers to an action that is understood as having a natural endpoint, result, or limit, while unboundedness refers to an action perceived as continuous, repeated, habitual, or without a clearly defined endpoint. The study analyzes how these meanings are expressed through lexical aspect, verb-object relations, grammatical aspect, auxiliary constructions, and contextual factors. In English, boundedness is often formed through lexical aspect, quantized objects, prepositional phrases, and perfective interpretations. In Uzbek, boundedness is frequently expressed through verbal constructions such as -ib bo‘l-, -ib bitir-, -ib chiq-, -ib yubor-, and -ib qo‘y-, while unboundedness is commonly realized through progressive, habitual, and context-dependent verb forms. The comparison shows that both languages express boundedness and unboundedness, but they use different grammatical and semantic mechanisms