ANTONYMIC PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS EXPRESSING PERSONALITY TRAITS IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative study of phraseological units (PUs) containing antonymic components that express human personality traits in English and Uzbek. Drawing on material from bilingual and monolingual phraseological dictionaries, the study identifies the main structural-semantic models underlying such units  explicit antonymic pairs, implicit metaphorical opposition, and somatic-based constructions  and compares their frequency and imagery across the two languages. The analysis shows that Uzbek phraseology tends to rely on ethically grounded binary oppositions (white/black as good/evil), while English phraseology more often draws on zoomorphic and object-based imagery. The results contribute to contrastive phraseology, translation studies, and the teaching of English and Uzbek as foreign languages.