CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF VERBS OF WALKING IN ENGLISH AND SERBIAN

Abstract

The subject of this paper is to contrast the verbs of walking in English and Serbian. Nineteen verbs have been taken into consideration and they are representatives of different subcategories or groups within the lexical field of verbs of walking. The verbs are divided according to the componential analysis, whereby the crucial criteria are manner, purpose, direction, reason and place of walking. Besides the common components of meanings (such as walk), the verbs also contain more specific ones, i.e. diagnostic components which serve to distinguish the meanings of verbs not only within one group of verbs of walking, but among other categories in the same lexical field.

The analysis has revealed that from all the verbs taken into account, thirteen verbs have got formal correspondents in Serbian, while ten of them have got translation equivalents. In case of formal correspondence, the form and the content of verbs are identical in both languages, while in case of translation equivalence the formal criterion is not fulfilled, although the meaning of verbs is the same. That means that the verb in English has more components of meaning than the verb in Serbian, so the latter one needs to be modified by adding a component which completes the meaning. The paper indicates specific meanings of the English verbs of walking, whereby the available formal correspondents often do not contain as nuanced components as the ones in English.