33. Zeugma and pun.

Zeugma (Gk. zeuguana 'joining, uniting') or syllepsis is the blending together of two or more semantically incompatible word groups, having an identical lexical item (usu. a polysemantic word), into a single construction where this item is used only once.

E.g. … it was a perfect purgatory of dust and confusion and gritting of teeth and soft, sweet and low profanity. (Twain)

In the resultant cluster the identical lexical item is in the same grammatical (syntactical) but different semantic relations with the adjacent units, which pertain to semantic spheres inconsistent with each other.

Thus, without being repeated the lexical unit is used in a literal and in a transferred meaning.

E.g. With tears in her eyes and a Gucci bag she appeared at the door of his apartment.

Function. The effect produced by zeugmatic combinations is humorous or ironical.

Zeugma is an accepted stylistic device in English literature, in Russian it is beyond the literary norm.

Pun – the use of a word in such a manner as to bring out different meanings or applications of one polysemantic word,

– or the use of words alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning (homophones, paronyms), often with humorous intent.

It is also called wordplay, play on words, quibble, paronomasia, (Latin, from Gr. paronomazein ‘to call by a different name, to name besides’: para ‘besides’ + onomazein – ‘to name’).

Alongside the English term 'pun', the international (originally French) term calembour is current.

E.g. It is not my principle ('general rule of conduct') to pay the interest ('money paid for use of money lent'), and it is not my interest ('advantage, profit, or generally, thing in which one is concerned') to pay the principal ('the original sum lent') (a polysemantic word and homophones).

E.g. She was too beautiful for wards (a ward sounds nearly the same as words, i.e. paronyms).

Function. The creation of a jocular atmosphere caused by the intentional mistreatment of the meaning of the lexical unit either by the speaker.

E.g. – I beg your pardon.

– I am not offended.

The majority of jokes are based on pun.

The distinction between zeugma and pun

Both zeugma and pun are based on polysemy and create a humorous effect.

The distinguishing feature is mainly a structural one as

-zeugma is always a structure with two adjacent elements linked with the central element which is used only once; while

-pun 1) is more independent as it needs a broader (than a structure) context for its decoding and there need not necessarily be a word in the sentence to which the pun-word refers; 2) pun-words often recur.

Moreover, pun is more varied as besides polysemy it rests on the use of homophones and paronyms.

34. Oxymoron. Antonomasia

Oxymoron (Gk. oxus ‘sharp’ + moros ‘foolish’) is a combination of words that express two diametrically opposite notions.

E.g. Her cheerfulness was the cheerfulness of despair. (Maugham)

Oxymoron ascribes some feature to an object or phenomenon incompatible with it, that is why one of its two components can be said to be used figuratively.

E.g. О loving hate! ( Shakespeare)

Moreover, in oxymoron the logical meaning prevails over the emotive but the emotive is the result of the clash between the logical and illogical.

E.g. the famous drama by L. Tolstoy ‘The Living Corpse’.

Semantically an oxymoron can be of two types:

- evident (composed of dictionary antonyms), e.g. beautifully ugly; and

-non-evident (composed of words that render mutually exclusive notions and become contextual antonyms), e.g. jolly starvation.

Structurally oxymora can be formed by an attributive combination (e.g. beautiful horror) or an adverbial word combination (e.g. to swear pleasingly, to be proudly weak).

To less frequent types belong combinations like ugly in a pleasant way, a sweet kind of torture, etc.

Close to oxymoron stands paradox, a statement that is self-contradictory or absurd on the surface.

E.g. The best way to get rid of a temptation is yield to it. (O. Wilde)

‘Why do nice women marry dull men?’ ‘Because intelligent men won’t marry nice women’. (Maugham)

There are a lot of cases of trite oxymora.

E.g. active leisure; terribly nice (the oxymoronic character has been lost for terribly serves as a mere intensifier, a synonym of the neutral very).

Function. In spite of the outward illogicality oxymoronic collocations are full of sober sense: they disclose seeming or genuine discrepancies of objects and phenomena as well as the contradictions of life.

Sometimes they create an ironic or comical effect.

E.g. the noble family of swine. (Golding)

Antonomasia (Gk. antonomasia 'naming instead’; antonomazein 'to name differently’) is usu. the substitution of the of the proper name of a person for another name in order to characterize him/her.

E.g. ‘You will laugh at me. I am a materialist, and I am a gross, fat man – Falstaff, eh? – the lyrical mode does not become me …’ (Maugham)

Casanova (for a ladies' man ), a Cicero (for an orator).

Function: characterization through name, creation of humorous atmosphere.

There exist 2 major types of antonomasia:

1) A proper name is used as a common noun. Here belong:

a) metaphorical antonomasia (when the proper name of a famous personage is applied to a person whose characteristic features resemble those of the well-known original or prototype).

E.g. ‘ I don’t pretend to be a great painter,’ he said. ‘I’m not a Michael Angelo, no, but I have something ...’ (Maugham); and

b)metonymic antonomasia (observed in cases when a personal name stands for something connected with the bearer of that name).

E.g. This is my real Goya. (Galsworthy)

I am fond of Dickens (= of Dickens' books).

The use of such antonomastic words demonstrates how proper nouns acquire new, logical meanings:

Some of them are still spelt with capital letters, others are already spelt with small letters.

E.g. The word hooligan going back to a proper name of a person known for his lawless behavior.

They can be used with an ‘a’- article.

E.g. She was beginning to like … middle-aged men … but … really nice attractive ones … had hardly more than an occasional faint gleam of interest to spare for a Miss Matfield. (Priestley)

They can be used in the plural.

E.g. It was a pity that silly young men did not amuse her, for there were plenty of Ivors about, whereas there were very few real grown-up men about …. (Priestley)