THE SOCIAL LIFE OF DIGITAL VERBS: ENGLISH-DERIVED FORMS IN AZERBAIJANI ONLINE COMMUNICATION

This article examines a small but highly visible group of English-derived verbal expressions in contemporary Azerbaijani online communication. The analysis focuses on forms such as layk etmək, follow etmək, tag etmək, post atmaq, forward etmək, pinləmək, editləmək and bloklamaq. Rather than treating these items simply as evidence of English influence, the study asks what happens after a digital term enters Azerbaijani discourse: how it is fitted into Azerbaijani grammar, where it is preferred, and what social meanings accompany its use. The material is drawn from a previously assembled corpus of approximately 275 publicly accessible Azerbaijani-language posts and comments from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Telegram, LinkedIn and Reddit, collected for the period 2020–2025. The present paper re-examines the relevant examples qualitatively, with attention to morphological integration, platform register and communicative function. The findings show that English lexical bases are frequently combined with Azerbaijani auxiliary verbs or derivational morphology, producing forms that are grammatically local but socially associated with digital practice. Their distribution is not uniform: informal and interaction-oriented platforms favour visibly hybrid forms, while professional contexts tend to retain more restrained lexical choices. The data therefore suggest that these verbs are useful indicators of digital register formation rather than isolated borrowings.