107-401: A pun , also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics , is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic , homographic , metonymic , or figurative language . A pun differs from a malapropism in that a malapropism
214-414: A branch of linguistics. Before the 20th century, linguists analysed language on a diachronic plane, which was historical in focus. This meant that they would compare linguistic features and try to analyse language from the point of view of how it had changed between then and later. However, with the rise of Saussurean linguistics in the 20th century, the focus shifted to a more synchronic approach, where
321-560: A comparison of different time periods in the past and present) or in a synchronic manner (by observing developments between different variations that exist within the current linguistic stage of a language). At first, historical linguistics was the cornerstone of comparative linguistics , which involves a study of the relationship between different languages. At that time, scholars of historical linguistics were only concerned with creating different categories of language families , and reconstructing prehistoric proto-languages by using both
428-542: A grave man" in Romeo and Juliet . Shakespeare was also noted for his frequent play with less serious puns, the "quibbles" of the sort that made Samuel Johnson complain, "A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller! He follows it to all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible." Elsewhere, Johnson disparagingly referred to punning as
535-401: A leg. We want your tows." Here, the familiar phrase "an arm and a leg" is paronomastically punned upon with "tows," playing on the phonetic similarity to "toes" while referring to the company's service of towing belongings. Metonymic puns exploit the metonymic relationship between words – where a word or phrase is used to represent something it's closely associated with. In such puns, one term
642-434: A linguistic medium of communication in itself. Palaeography is therefore the discipline that studies the evolution of written scripts (as signs and symbols) in language. The formal study of language also led to the growth of fields like psycholinguistics , which explores the representation and function of language in the mind; neurolinguistics , which studies language processing in the brain; biolinguistics , which studies
749-617: A new tolerance for a long-despised form of humor." It can be argued that paronomasia is common in media headlines, to draw the reader's interest. The rhetoric is important because it connects people with the topic. A notable example is the New York Post headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar". New York Post headlines for sex scandal articles have included "Cloak and Shag Her" (General Petraeus), "Obama Beats Weiner" (Congressman Weiner), and " Bezos Exposes Pecker ". Paronomasia
856-416: A particular feature or usage is "good" or "bad". This is analogous to practice in other sciences: a zoologist studies the animal kingdom without making subjective judgments on whether a particular species is "better" or "worse" than another. Prescription , on the other hand, is an attempt to promote particular linguistic usages over others, often favoring a particular dialect or " acrolect ". This may have
963-494: A particular language), and pragmatics (how the context of use contributes to meaning). Subdisciplines such as biolinguistics (the study of the biological variables and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) bridge many of these divisions. Linguistics encompasses many branches and subfields that span both theoretical and practical applications. Theoretical linguistics (including traditional descriptive linguistics)
1070-462: A pun can make the speaker seem witty. Paronomasia is strong in print media and oral conversation so it can be assumed that paronomasia is strong in broadcast media as well. Examples of paronomasia in media are sound bites. They could be memorable because of the humor and rhetoric associated with paronomasia, thus making the significance of the soundbite stronger. There exist subtle differences between paronomasia and other literary techniques, such as
1177-484: A pun may be based on a similarity in shape of the written character, despite a complete lack of phonetic similarity in the words punned upon. Mark Elvin describes how this "peculiarly Chinese form of visual punning involved comparing written characters to objects." Visual puns on the bearer's name are used extensively as forms of heraldic expression, they are called canting arms . They have been used for centuries across Europe and have even been used recently by members of
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#17327807895911284-451: A scrap of difference between them. They're the same species of Curculio ." Captain Aubrey: "If you had to choose. If you were forced to make a choice. If there were no other option." Dr. Maturin: "Well, then, if you're going to push me. I would choose the right-hand weevil. It has significant advantage in both length and breadth." Captain Aubrey: "There, I have you!...Do you not know that in
1391-419: A second-language speaker who is attempting to acquire the language. Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that spoken data and signed data are more fundamental than written data . This is because Nonetheless, linguists agree that the study of written language can be worthwhile and valuable. For research that relies on corpus linguistics and computational linguistics , written language
1498-416: A title can immediately communicate both that what follows is a parody and also that work is about to be parodied, making any further "setup" (introductory explanation) unnecessary. Sometimes called "books never written" or "world's greatest books", these are jokes that consist of fictitious book titles with authors' names that contain a pun relating to the title. Perhaps the best-known example is: " Tragedy on
1605-549: A tree-surgeon in Dudley called " Special Branch ". The winning entry, selected by Lee Nelson , was a dry cleaner's in Fulham and Chelsea called "Starchy and Starchy", a pun on Saatchi & Saatchi . Paronomasia has found a strong foothold in the media. William Safire of The New York Times suggests that "the root of this pace-growing [use of paronomasia] is often a headline-writer's need for quick catchiness, and has resulted in
1712-419: A view towards uncovering the biological underpinnings of language. In Generative Grammar , these underpinning are understood as including innate domain-specific grammatical knowledge. Thus, one of the central concerns of the approach is to discover what aspects of linguistic knowledge are innate and which are not. Cognitive linguistics , in contrast, rejects the notion of innate grammar, and studies how
1819-424: A word. Linguistic structures are pairings of meaning and form. Any particular pairing of meaning and form is a Saussurean linguistic sign . For instance, the meaning "cat" is represented worldwide with a wide variety of different sound patterns (in oral languages), movements of the hands and face (in sign languages ), and written symbols (in written languages). Linguistic patterns have proven their importance for
1926-444: A word. For instance, in the sentence, "I used to be a baker, but I couldn't make enough dough," the word "dough" is used paronomastically to refer both to the substance used to make bread and to slang for money. This type of pun is frequently used in advertisements , comedy , and literature to provide a clever and memorable message. One notable example comes from an advertising slogan for a moving company: "We don't charge an arm and
2033-746: Is "a Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother ". The recursive pun "Immanuel doesn't pun, he Kant " is attributed to Oscar Wilde . Visual puns are sometimes used in logos, emblems, insignia, and other graphic symbols, in which one or more of the pun aspects is replaced by a picture. In European heraldry , this technique is called canting arms . Visual and other puns and word games are also common in Dutch gable stones as well as in some cartoons , such as Lost Consonants and The Far Side . Another type of visual pun exists in languages that use non-phonetic writing. For example, in Chinese,
2140-462: Is a researcher within the field, or to someone who uses the tools of the discipline to describe and analyse specific languages. An early formal study of language was in India with Pāṇini , the 6th century BC grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology . Pāṇini's systematic classification of the sounds of Sanskrit into consonants and vowels, and word classes, such as nouns and verbs,
2247-430: Is a system of rules which governs the production and use of utterances in a given language. These rules apply to sound as well as meaning, and include componential subsets of rules, such as those pertaining to phonology (the organization of phonetic sound systems), morphology (the formation and composition of words), and syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences). Modern frameworks that deal with
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#17327807895912354-409: Is also an example of a multilingual pun, full understanding of which requires knowledge of more than one language on the part of the listener. Names of fictional characters also often carry puns, such as Ash Ketchum , the protagonist of the anime series Pokémon , and Goku ("Kakarrot"), the protagonist of the manga series Dragon Ball . Both franchises are known for including second meanings in
2461-506: Is an incorrect variation on a correct expression, while a pun involves expressions with multiple (correct or fairly reasonable) interpretations. Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, especially as their usage and meaning are usually specific to a particular language or its culture . Puns have a long history in writing. For example, the Roman playwright Plautus was famous for his puns and word games. A homophonic pun
2568-441: Is concerned with understanding the universal and fundamental nature of language and developing a general theoretical framework for describing it. Applied linguistics seeks to utilize the scientific findings of the study of language for practical purposes, such as developing methods of improving language education and literacy. Linguistic features may be studied through a variety of perspectives: synchronically (by describing
2675-440: Is conventional or "coded" in a given language, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the structural and linguistic knowledge (grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors. Phonetics and phonology are branches of linguistics concerned with sounds (or
2782-469: Is generally hard to find for events long ago, due to the occurrence of chance word resemblances and variations between language groups. A limit of around 10,000 years is often assumed for the functional purpose of conducting research. It is also hard to date various proto-languages. Even though several methods are available, these languages can be dated only approximately. In modern historical linguistics, we examine how languages change over time, focusing on
2889-460: Is just like playing golf : you are trapped in one bad lie after another" puns on the two meanings of the word lie as "a deliberate untruth" and as "the position in which something rests". An adaptation of a joke repeated by Isaac Asimov gives us "Did you hear about the little moron who strained himself while running into the screen door?" playing on strained as "to give much effort" and "to filter". A homonymic pun may also be polysemic , in which
2996-447: Is often much more convenient for processing large amounts of linguistic data. Large corpora of spoken language are difficult to create and hard to find, and are typically transcribed and written. In addition, linguists have turned to text-based discourse occurring in various formats of computer-mediated communication as a viable site for linguistic inquiry. The study of writing systems themselves, graphemics, is, in any case, considered
3103-593: Is one that uses word pairs which sound alike ( homophones ) but are not synonymous. Walter Redfern summarized this type with his statement, "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms ." For example, in George Carlin 's phrase "atheism is a non-prophet institution", the word prophet is put in place of its homophone profit , altering the common phrase " non-profit institution ". Similarly, the joke "Question: Why do we still have troops in Germany ? Answer: To keep
3210-461: Is parsed as dis-tressed (having hair cut off), or in the self-referential pun "I entered ten puns in a pun competition hoping one would win, but no pun in ten did" (parsed as "no pun intended"). Puns are a common source of humour in jokes and comedy shows . They are often used in the punch line of a joke, where they typically give a humorous meaning to a rather perplexing story. These are also known as feghoots . The following example comes from
3317-480: Is prevalent orally as well. Salvatore Attardo believes that puns are verbal humor. He talks about Pepicello and Weisberg's linguistic theory of humor and believes the only form of linguistic humor is limited to puns. This is because a pun is a play on the word itself. Attardo believes that only puns are able to maintain humor and this humor has significance. It is able to help soften a situation and make it less serious, it can help make something more memorable, and using
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3424-430: Is reached through the identical spellings of / b eɪ s / (a string instrument ), and / b æ s / (a kind of fish ). Homographic puns do not necessarily need to follow grammatical rules and often do not make sense when interpreted outside the context of the pun. Homonymic puns, another common type, arise from the exploitation of words that are both homographs and homophones. The statement "Being in politics
3531-598: Is repeated with the meaning "be executed." This punning style is prevalent in both humorous and serious contexts, adding layers of complexity to the language by highlighting the multifaceted nature of words. Such puns are frequently used in literature, speeches, and advertising to deliver memorable and impactful lines. Richard J. Alexander notes two additional forms that puns may take: graphological (sometimes called visual) puns, such as concrete poetry ; and morphological puns, such as portmanteaux . Morphological puns may make use of rebracketing , where for instance distressed
3638-452: Is selected based on specific contexts but also, at a micro level, shapes language as text (spoken or written) down to the phonological and lexico-grammatical levels. Grammar and discourse are linked as parts of a system. A particular discourse becomes a language variety when it is used in this way for a particular purpose, and is referred to as a register . There may be certain lexical additions (new words) that are brought into play because of
3745-445: Is substituted for another term with which it's closely linked by a concept or idea. The humor or wit of the pun often comes from the unexpected yet apt connection made between the two concepts. For instance, consider a hypothetical news headline: "The White House loses its balance." In this case, "The White House" is used metonymically to represent the U.S. government , and "balance" could be interpreted both as physical stability (as if
3852-404: Is the formal term for punning , playing with words to create humorous or rhetorical effect. Paronomastic puns often manipulate well-known idioms , proverbs , or phrases to deliver a punned twist. The classic structure of a joke, with a setup leading to a punchline, is a common format for paronomastic puns, where the punchline alters the expected phrase in a way that plays on multiple meanings of
3959-428: Is the study of how language changes over history, particularly with regard to a specific language or a group of languages. Western trends in historical linguistics date back to roughly the late 18th century, when the discipline grew out of philology , the study of ancient texts and oral traditions. Historical linguistics emerged as one of the first few sub-disciplines in the field, and was most widely practised during
4066-468: The British royal family , such as on the arms of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and of Princess Beatrice of York . The arms of U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower are also canting . In the context of non-phonetic texts, 4 Pics 1 Word , is an example of visual paronomasia where the players are supposed to identify the word in common from the set of four images. Paronomasia
4173-724: The O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships in Austin, Texas . In 2015 the UK Pun Champion was Leo Kearse. Other pun competitions include Minnesota’s Pundamonium, Orlando Punslingers, the Almost Annual Pun-Off in Eureka, and Brooklyn’s Punderdome, led by Jo Firestone and her father, Fred Firestone. In Away with Words: An Irreverent Tour Through the World of Pun Competitions, Joe Berkowitz deems Austin's O. Henry Pun-Off
4280-636: The Russians in Czech " relies on the aural ambiguity of the homophones check and Czech . Often, puns are not strictly homophonic, but play on words of similar, not identical, sound as in the example from the Pinky and the Brain cartoon film series: "I think so, Brain, but if we give peas a chance, won't the lima beans feel left out?" which plays with the similar—but not identical—sound of peas and peace in
4387-508: The Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāyī . Today, modern-day theories on grammar employ many of the principles that were laid down then. Before the 20th century, the term philology , first attested in 1716, was commonly used to refer to the study of language, which was then predominantly historical in focus. Since Ferdinand de Saussure 's insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis , however, this focus has shifted and
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4494-432: The agent or patient . Functional linguistics , or functional grammar, is a branch of structural linguistics. In the humanistic reference, the terms structuralism and functionalism are related to their meaning in other human sciences . The difference between formal and functional structuralism lies in the way that the two approaches explain why languages have the properties they have. Functional explanation entails
4601-626: The comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction . Internal reconstruction is the method by which an element that contains a certain meaning is re-used in different contexts or environments where there is a variation in either sound or analogy. The reason for this had been to describe well-known Indo-European languages , many of which had detailed documentation and long written histories. Scholars of historical linguistics also studied Uralic languages , another European language family for which very little written material existed back then. After that, there also followed significant work on
4708-506: The double entendre . While puns are often simple wordplay for comedic or rhetorical effect, a double entendre alludes to a second meaning that is not contained within the statement or phrase itself, often one that purposefully disguises the second meaning. As both exploit the use of intentional double meanings, puns can sometimes be double entendres, and vice versa. Puns also bear similarities with paraprosdokian , syllepsis , and eggcorns . In addition, homographic puns are sometimes compared to
4815-412: The knowledge engineering field especially with the ever-increasing amount of available data. Linguists focusing on structure attempt to understand the rules regarding language use that native speakers know (not always consciously). All linguistic structures can be broken down into component parts that are combined according to (sub)conscious rules, over multiple levels of analysis. For instance, consider
4922-504: The mind of the individual or the speech community. Construction grammar is a framework which applies the meme concept to the study of syntax. The generative versus evolutionary approach are sometimes called formalism and functionalism , respectively. This reference is however different from the use of the terms in human sciences . Modern linguistics is primarily descriptive . Linguists describe and explain features of language without making subjective judgments on whether
5029-454: The stylistic device antanaclasis , and homophonic puns to polyptoton . Puns can be used as a type of mnemonic device to enhance comprehension in an educational setting. Used discreetly, puns can effectively reinforce content and aid in the retention of material. Some linguists have encouraged the creation of neologisms to decrease the instances of confusion caused by puns. Puns were found in ancient Egypt , where they were heavily used in
5136-525: The "Olympics" of pun competitions, and Brooklyn's Punderdome the "X Games". GQ described the crowd at Brooklyn's Punderdome as "passionate, to a level that feels dangerous". Non-humorous puns were and are a standard poetic device in English literature . Puns and other forms of wordplay have been used by many famous writers, such as Alexander Pope , James Joyce , Vladimir Nabokov , Robert Bloch , Lewis Carroll , John Donne , and William Shakespeare . In
5243-455: The "medical discourse", and so on. The lexicon is a catalogue of words and terms that are stored in a speaker's mind. The lexicon consists of words and bound morphemes , which are parts of words that can not stand alone, like affixes . In some analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions and other collocations are also considered to be part of the lexicon. Dictionaries represent attempts at listing, in alphabetical order,
5350-410: The "n" sound in "tenth" is made differently from the "n" sound in "ten" spoken alone. Although most speakers of English are consciously aware of the rules governing internal structure of the word pieces of "tenth", they are less often aware of the rule governing its sound structure. Linguists focused on structure find and analyze rules such as these, which govern how native speakers use language. Grammar
5457-543: The 18th century, the first use of the comparative method by William Jones sparked the rise of comparative linguistics . Bloomfield attributes "the first great scientific linguistic work of the world" to Jacob Grimm , who wrote Deutsche Grammatik . It was soon followed by other authors writing similar comparative studies on other language groups of Europe. The study of language was broadened from Indo-European to language in general by Wilhelm von Humboldt , of whom Bloomfield asserts: This study received its foundation at
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#17327807895915564-529: The Cliff by Eileen Dover", which according to one source was devised by humourist Peter De Vries . It is common for these puns to refer to taboo subject matter, such as " What Boys Love by E. Norma Stitts". Pun competitions 2014 saw the inaugural UK Pun Championships, at the Leicester Comedy Festival , hosted by Lee Nelson . The winner was Darren Walsh. Walsh went on to take part in
5671-575: The East, but the grammarians of the classical languages did not use the same methods or reach the same conclusions as their contemporaries in the Indic world. Early interest in language in the West was a part of philosophy, not of grammatical description. The first insights into semantic theory were made by Plato in his Cratylus dialogue , where he argues that words denote concepts that are eternal and exist in
5778-640: The Grapes wine and spirits, Curl Up and Dye hair salon, as do books such as Pies and Prejudice , webcomics like ( YU+ME: dream ) and feature films such as ( Good Will Hunting ). The Japanese anime Speed Racer 's original Japanese title, Mach GoGoGo! refers to the English word itself, the Japanese word for five (the Mach Five 's car number), and the name of the show's main character, Go Mifune. This
5885-503: The Service , one must always choose the lesser of the two weevils. " Not infrequently, puns are used in the titles of comedic parodies . A parody of a popular song, movie, etc., may be given a title that hints at the title of the work being parodied, replacing some of the words with ones that sound or look similar. For example, collegiate a cappella groups are often named after musical puns to attract fans through attempts at humor. Such
5992-671: The aim of establishing a linguistic standard , which can aid communication over large geographical areas. It may also, however, be an attempt by speakers of one language or dialect to exert influence over speakers of other languages or dialects (see Linguistic imperialism ). An extreme version of prescriptivism can be found among censors , who attempt to eradicate words and structures that they consider to be destructive to society. Prescription, however, may be practised appropriately in language instruction , like in ELT , where certain fundamental grammatical rules and lexical items need to be introduced to
6099-441: The anecdote: "When asked to explain his large number of children, the pig answered simply: 'The wild oats of my sow gave us many piglets. ' " An example that combines homophonic and homographic punning is Douglas Adams 's line "You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass ." The phrase uses the homophonic qualities of tune a and tuna , as well as the homographic pun on bass , in which ambiguity
6206-437: The anti-war slogan " Give Peace a Chance ". A homographic pun exploits words that are spelled the same ( homographs ) but possess different meanings and sounds. Because of their origin, they rely on sight more than hearing, contrary to homophonic puns. They are also known as heteronymic puns . Examples in which the punned words typically exist in two different parts of speech often rely on unusual sentence construction, as in
6313-466: The audience's background with the possibility of detracting from the intended message. Like other forms of wordplay, paronomasia is occasionally used for its attention-getting or mnemonic qualities, making it common in titles and the names of places, characters, and organizations, and in advertising and slogans. Many restaurant and shop names use puns: Cane & Able mobility healthcare, Sam & Ella 's Chicken Palace, Tiecoon tie shop, Planet of
6420-404: The biology and evolution of language; and language acquisition , which investigates how children and adults acquire the knowledge of one or more languages. The fundamental principle of humanistic linguistics, especially rational and logical grammar , is that language is an invention created by people. A semiotic tradition of linguistic research considers language a sign system which arises from
6527-426: The building itself is tipping over) or fiscal balance (as in the budget), thereby creating a pun. While metonymic puns may not be as widely recognized as a specific category of pun, they represent a sophisticated linguistic tool that can bring an additional layer of nuance to wordplay. Syllepsis , or heteronymy, is a form of punning where a single word simultaneously affects the rest of the sentence, while it changes
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#17327807895916634-421: The children.) Notable practitioners of the sylleptic pun include authors such as P. G. Wodehouse , who once wrote, "If not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled," playing on the dichotomy of "disgruntled" and "gruntled," where the latter is not typically used. Antanaclasis is a type of pun where a single word or phrase is repeated, but the meaning changes each time. The humor or wit derives from
6741-559: The corpora of other languages, such as the Austronesian languages and the Native American language families . In historical work, the uniformitarian principle is generally the underlying working hypothesis, occasionally also clearly expressed. The principle was expressed early by William Dwight Whitney , who considered it imperative, a "must", of historical linguistics to "look to find the same principle operative also in
6848-462: The development of modern standard varieties of languages, and over the development of a language from its standardized form to its varieties. For instance, some scholars also tried to establish super-families , linking, for example, Indo-European, Uralic, and other language families to Nostratic . While these attempts are still not widely accepted as credible methods, they provide necessary information to establish relatedness in language change. This
6955-500: The development of myths and interpretation of dreams. In China , Shen Dao (ca. 300 BC) used "shi", meaning "power", and "shi", meaning "position" to say that a king has power because of his position as king. In ancient Mesopotamia around 2500 BC, punning was used by scribes to represent words in cuneiform . The Tanakh contains puns. The Maya are known for having used puns in their hieroglyphic writing , and for using them in their modern languages. In Japan, " graphomania "
7062-426: The equivalent aspects of sign languages). Phonetics is largely concerned with the physical aspects of sounds such as their articulation , acoustics, production, and perception. Phonology is concerned with the linguistic abstractions and categorizations of sounds, and it tells us what sounds are in a language, how they do and can combine into words, and explains why certain phonetic features are important to identifying
7169-430: The expertise of the community of people within a certain domain of specialization. Thus, registers and discourses distinguish themselves not only through specialized vocabulary but also, in some cases, through distinct stylistic choices. People in the medical fraternity, for example, may use some medical terminology in their communication that is specialized to the field of medicine. This is often referred to as being part of
7276-450: The field of philology , of which some branches are more qualitative and holistic in approach. Today, philology and linguistics are variably described as related fields, subdisciplines, or separate fields of language study but, by and large, linguistics can be seen as an umbrella term. Linguistics is also related to the philosophy of language , stylistics , rhetoric , semiotics , lexicography , and translation . Historical linguistics
7383-644: The hands of the Prussian statesman and scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), especially in the first volume of his work on Kavi, the literary language of Java, entitled Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts ( On the Variety of the Structure of Human Language and its Influence upon the Mental Development of
7490-430: The highest form of literature." Shakespeare is estimated to have used over 3,000 puns in his plays . Even though many of the puns were bawdy, Elizabethan literature considered puns and wordplay to be a "sign of literary refinement" more so than humor. This is evidenced by the deployment of puns in serious or "seemingly inappropriate" scenes, like when a dying Mercutio quips "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me
7597-433: The history of a language. The discipline that deals specifically with the sound changes occurring within morphemes is morphophonology . Semantics and pragmatics are branches of linguistics concerned with meaning. These subfields have traditionally been divided according to aspects of meaning: "semantics" refers to grammatical and lexical meanings, while "pragmatics" is concerned with meaning in context. Within linguistics,
7704-414: The human mind creates linguistic constructions from event schemas , and the impact of cognitive constraints and biases on human language. In cognitive linguistics, language is approached via the senses . A closely related approach is evolutionary linguistics which includes the study of linguistic units as cultural replicators . It is possible to study how language replicates and adapts to
7811-461: The idea that language is a tool for communication, or that communication is the primary function of language. Linguistic forms are consequently explained by an appeal to their functional value, or usefulness. Other structuralist approaches take the perspective that form follows from the inner mechanisms of the bilateral and multilayered language system. Approaches such as cognitive linguistics and generative grammar study linguistic cognition with
7918-498: The interaction of meaning and form. The organization of linguistic levels is considered computational. Linguistics is essentially seen as relating to social and cultural studies because different languages are shaped in social interaction by the speech community . Frameworks representing the humanistic view of language include structural linguistics , among others. Structural analysis means dissecting each linguistic level: phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and discourse, to
8025-412: The late 19th century. Despite a shift in focus in the 20th century towards formalism and generative grammar , which studies the universal properties of language, historical research today still remains a significant field of linguistic inquiry. Subfields of the discipline include language change and grammaticalization . Historical linguistics studies language change either diachronically (through
8132-429: The lexicon of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are not included. Lexicography , closely linked with the domain of semantics, is the science of mapping the words into an encyclopedia or a dictionary. The creation and addition of new words (into the lexicon) is called coining or neologization , and the new words are called neologisms . It is often believed that a speaker's capacity for language lies in
8239-434: The lowest form of humour. Puns can function as a rhetorical device , where the pun serves as a persuasive instrument for an author or speaker. Although puns are sometimes perceived as trite or silly, if used responsibly a pun "can be an effective communication tool in a variety of situations and forms". A major difficulty in using puns in this manner is that the meaning of a pun can be interpreted very differently according to
8346-581: The meaning of the idiom it is used in. This form of punning uses the word in its literal and metaphorical senses at once, creating a surprising and often humorous effect. An example of a sylleptic pun is in the sentence, "She lowered her standards by raising her glass, her courage, her eyes and his hopes." In this case, "raising" applies in different ways to each of the items listed, creating a series of linked puns. This type of punning can often be seen in literature, particularly in works that play extensively with language. (She razed his self-esteem in how she raised
8453-469: The movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World , though the punchline stems from far older Vaudeville roots. The final line puns on the stock phrase " the lesser of two evils ". After Aubrey offers his pun (to the enjoyment of many), Dr. Maturin shows a disdain for the craft with his reply, "One who would pun would pick-a-pocket." Captain Aubrey: "Do you see those two weevils , Doctor?...Which would you choose?" Dr. Maturin: "Neither. There's not
8560-503: The names of characters. A recurring motif in the Austin Powers films repeatedly puns on names that suggest male genitalia. In the science fiction television series Star Trek , " B-4 " is used as the name of one of four androids models constructed "before" the android Data , a main character. A librarian in another Star Trek episode was named "Mr. Atoz" (A to Z). The parallel sequel The Lion King 1½ advertised with
8667-426: The nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning. There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals. Morphology is the study of words , including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes , which are
8774-421: The other hand, focuses on an analysis that is based on the paradigms or concepts that are embedded in a given text. In this case, words of the same type or class may be replaced in the text with each other to achieve the same conceptual understanding. The earliest activities in the description of language have been attributed to the 6th-century-BC Indian grammarian Pāṇini who wrote a formal description of
8881-569: The phrase "You haven't seen the 1/2 of it!". Wyborowa Vodka employed the slogan "Enjoyed for centuries straight", while Northern Telecom used "Technology the world calls on." On 1 June 2015 the BBC Radio 4 You and Yours included a feature on "Puntastic Shop Titles". Entries included a Chinese Takeaway in Ayr town centre called " Ayr's Wok ", a kebab shop in Ireland called " Abra Kebabra " and
8988-403: The phrase "piano is not my forte" links two meanings of the words forte and piano , one for the dynamic markings in music and the second for the literal meaning of the sentence, as well as alluding to "pianoforte", the older name of the instrument. Compound puns may also combine two phrases that share a word. For example, "Where do mathematicians go on weekends? To a Möbius strip club!" puns on
9095-653: The poem A Hymn to God the Father , John Donne , whose wife's name was Anne More, puns repeatedly: "Son/sun" in the second quoted line, and two compound puns on "Done/done" and "More/more". All three are homophonic, with the puns on "more" being both homographic and capitonymic . The ambiguities introduce several possible meanings into the verses. "When Thou hast done , Thou hast not done / For I have more . that at my death Thy Son / Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore And having done that, Thou hast done ; / I fear no more ." Alfred Hitchcock stated, "Puns are
9202-478: The principles of grammar include structural and functional linguistics , and generative linguistics . Sub-fields that focus on a grammatical study of language include the following: Discourse is language as social practice (Baynham, 1995) and is a multilayered concept. As a social practice, discourse embodies different ideologies through written and spoken texts. Discourse analysis can examine or expose these ideologies. Discourse not only influences genre, which
9309-489: The puns that make up the entire statement. For example, a complex statement by Richard Whately includes four puns: "Why can a man never starve in the Great Desert ? Because he can eat the sand which is there. But what brought the sandwiches there? Why, Noah sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred." This pun uses sand which is there/sandwiches there , Ham /ham , mustered/mustard , and bred/bread . Similarly,
9416-416: The quantity of words stored in the lexicon. However, this is often considered a myth by linguists. The capacity for the use of language is considered by many linguists to lie primarily in the domain of grammar, and to be linked with competence , rather than with the growth of vocabulary. Even a very small lexicon is theoretically capable of producing an infinite number of sentences. Stylistics also involves
9523-424: The relationships between dialects within a specific period. This includes studying morphological, syntactical, and phonetic shifts. Connections between dialects in the past and present are also explored. Syntax is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences . Central concerns of syntax include word order , grammatical relations , constituency , agreement ,
9630-401: The scientific study of language, though linguistic science is sometimes used. Linguistics is a multi-disciplinary field of research that combines tools from natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences , and the humanities. Many linguists, such as David Crystal, conceptualize the field as being primarily scientific. The term linguist applies to someone who studies language or
9737-694: The smallest units in a language with some independent meaning . Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word. For example, in English the root catch and the suffix -ing are both morphemes; catch may appear as its own word, or it may be combined with -ing to form the new word catching . Morphology also analyzes how words behave as parts of speech , and how they may be inflected to express grammatical categories including number , tense , and aspect . Concepts such as productivity are concerned with how speakers create words in specific contexts, which evolves over
9844-404: The smallest units. These are collected into inventories (e.g. phoneme, morpheme, lexical classes, phrase types) to study their interconnectedness within a hierarchy of structures and layers. Functional analysis adds to structural analysis the assignment of semantic and other functional roles that each unit may have. For example, a noun phrase may function as the subject or object of the sentence; or
9951-488: The structure of a language at a specific point in time) or diachronically (through the historical development of a language over a period of time), in monolinguals or in multilinguals , among children or among adults, in terms of how it is being learnt or how it was acquired, as abstract objects or as cognitive structures, through written texts or through oral elicitation, and finally through mechanical data collection or through practical fieldwork. Linguistics emerged from
10058-445: The structure of the word "tenth" on two different levels of analysis. On the level of internal word structure (known as morphology), the word "tenth" is made up of one linguistic form indicating a number and another form indicating ordinality. The rule governing the combination of these forms ensures that the ordinality marker "th" follows the number "ten." On the level of sound structure (known as phonology), structural analysis shows that
10165-471: The study of language in canonical works of literature, popular fiction, news, advertisements, and other forms of communication in popular culture as well. It is usually seen as a variation in communication that changes from speaker to speaker and community to community. In short, Stylistics is the interpretation of text. In the 1960s, Jacques Derrida , for instance, further distinguished between speech and writing, by proposing that written language be studied as
10272-531: The study of written, signed, or spoken discourse through varying speech communities, genres, and editorial or narrative formats in the mass media. It involves the study and interpretation of texts for aspects of their linguistic and tonal style. Stylistic analysis entails the analysis of description of particular dialects and registers used by speech communities. Stylistic features include rhetoric , diction, stress, satire, irony , dialogue, and other forms of phonetic variations. Stylistic analysis can also include
10379-436: The study was geared towards analysis and comparison between different language variations, which existed at the same given point of time. At another level, the syntagmatic plane of linguistic analysis entails the comparison between the way words are sequenced, within the syntax of a sentence. For example, the article "the" is followed by a noun, because of the syntagmatic relation between the words. The paradigmatic plane, on
10486-586: The subfield of formal semantics studies the denotations of sentences and how they are composed from the meanings of their constituent expressions. Formal semantics draws heavily on philosophy of language and uses formal tools from logic and computer science . On the other hand, cognitive semantics explains linguistic meaning via aspects of general cognition, drawing on ideas from cognitive science such as prototype theory . Pragmatics focuses on phenomena such as speech acts , implicature , and talk in interaction . Unlike semantics, which examines meaning that
10593-470: The surprising shift in meaning of a familiar word or phrase. This form of punning often relies on homophones, homonyms, or simply the contextual flexibility of a word or phrase. A classic example is Benjamin Franklin 's statement, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." In this quote, the word "hang" is first used to mean "stay" or "work together," but then, it
10700-482: The term philology is now generally used for the "study of a language's grammar, history, and literary tradition", especially in the United States (where philology has never been very popularly considered as the "science of language"). Although the term linguist in the sense of "a student of language" dates from 1641, the term linguistics is first attested in 1847. It is now the usual term in English for
10807-412: The terms Möbius strip and strip club . A recursive pun is one in which the second aspect of a pun relies on the understanding of an element in the first. For example, the statement " π is only half a pie" (π radians is 180 degrees , or half a circle, and a pie is a complete circle). Another example is " Infinity is not in finity", which means infinity is not in finite range. Another example
10914-420: The very outset of that [language] history." The above approach of comparativism in linguistics is now, however, only a small part of the much broader discipline called historical linguistics. The comparative study of specific Indo-European languages is considered a highly specialized field today, while comparative research is carried out over the subsequent internal developments in a language: in particular, over
11021-563: The word in its original meaning as " téchnē grammatikḗ " ( Τέχνη Γραμματική ), the "art of writing", which is also the title of one of the most important works of the Alexandrine school by Dionysius Thrax . Throughout the Middle Ages , the study of language was subsumed under the topic of philology, the study of ancient languages and texts, practised by such educators as Roger Ascham , Wolfgang Ratke , and John Amos Comenius . In
11128-422: The words must be homonymic and also possess related meanings, a condition that is often subjective. However, lexicographers define polysemes as listed under a single dictionary lemma (a unique numbered meaning) while homonyms are treated in separate lemmata. A compound pun is a statement that contains two or more puns. In this case, the wordplay cannot go into effect by utilizing the separate words or phrases of
11235-596: The world of ideas. This work is the first to use the word etymology to describe the history of a word's meaning. Around 280 BC, one of Alexander the Great 's successors founded a university (see Musaeum ) in Alexandria , where a school of philologists studied the ancient texts in Greek, and taught Greek to speakers of other languages. While this school was the first to use the word "grammar" in its modern sense, Plato had used
11342-429: Was one type of pun. More commonly, wordplay in modern Japan is known as dajare . Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language . The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages ), phonology (the abstract sound system of
11449-516: Was the first known instance of its kind. In the Middle East, Sibawayh , a Persian, made a detailed description of Arabic in AD 760 in his monumental work, Al-kitab fii an-naħw ( الكتاب في النحو , The Book on Grammar ), the first known author to distinguish between sounds and phonemes (sounds as units of a linguistic system) . Western interest in the study of languages began somewhat later than in
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