Axiological Changes in the Semantic Structure of Words Containing the Root -blag- In Belarusian

Abstract

This article examines the development and transformation of the axiological component in the semantics of lexical items containing the root -blag- in Belarusian. The study adopts both diachronic and synchronic perspectives to analyse this group of words. The research material includes historical, etymological, dialectal, and explanatory dictionaries of the Belarusian language, as well as texts drawn from the National Corpus of the Belarusian Language and Internet sources. To identify and describe the dynamics of evaluative and value-related changes within the semantic structure of the selected lexical items, the study employs introspection, dictionarydefinition analysis, comparative analysis, descriptive and interpretative methods, and statistical analysis. Because Belarusian and Russian are closely related languages, the historical development of vocabulary containing the root -blag- and its axiological meanings displays a number of similarities in both languages, although only up to a certain stage. The analysis demonstrates that changes in the axiological meaning of lexical items are influenced by both extralinguistic and intralinguistic factors. These include sociocultural transformations and broader social changes, as well as linguistic processes such as the formation of new derivatives with opposite semantic components, shifts in lexical and grammatical characteristics (including the use of a word in a different part of speech), and changes in stylistic register.