Zeugma and Pun

Polysemy

Derivative logical meanings have a peculiar property, they always retain some semantic ties with the primary meaning and are strongly associated with it. Most of the derivative logical meanings, when fixed in dictionaries, are usually shown with the words they are connected with and are therefore frequently referred to as bound logical meanings. The primary and derivative meanings are sometimes called free and bound meanings respectively, though some of the derivative meanings are not bound in present-day English.

Polysemy is a generic term the use of which must be confined to lexicology as an aspect of the science of language. In actual speech polysemy vanishes unless it is deliberately retained for certain stylistic purposes. A context that does not seek to produce any particular stylistic effect generally materialized one definite meaning. That is why we state that polysemy vanishes in speech, or language-in­action.

Let us analyse the following examples where the key-words are intentionally made to reveal two or more meanings:

"Then hate me if thou wilt, if ever now." (Shakespeare)

The verb 'hate' here materializes several meanings. This becomes apparent when one reads sonnet 90 to the end and compares the meaning of this word with other verbs used synonymously. The principal meanings of this word are: 'dislike', 'stop loving', 'become indifferent to', 'feel aversion for', etc.

There are special stylistic devices which make a word materialize two distinct dictionary meanings. They are zeugma and the pun.

Zeugma is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two adjacent words in the context, the semantic relations being on the one hand literal, and on the other, transferred.

"Dora, plunging at once into privileged intimacy and into the middle of the room ". (B. Shaw)

This stylistic device is particularly favoured in English emotive prose and in poetry.

The pun is another stylistic device based on the interaction of two well-known meanings of a word or phrase. It is difficult to draw a hard and fast distinction between zeugma and the pun. The only reliable distinguishing feature is a structural one: zeugma is the realization of two meanings with the help of a verb which is made to refer to different subjects or objects (direct or indirect). The pun is more independent. Like any other stylistic device, it must depend on a context.

But the context may be of a more expanded character, sometimes even as large as a whole work of emotive prose. Thus the title of one of Oscar Wilde's plays, "The Importance of Being Earnest" has a pun in it, inasmuch as the name of the hero and the adjective meaning 'seriously-minded' are both present in our mind.

c) Interaction of logical and emotive meanings

The emotive meaning or emotional colouring (contextual emotive meaning) of a word plays a considerable role in stylistics. Both words and constructions of an emotional character have a stylistic significance only when they are set against the non-emotional. Thus, for instance, interjections, which are erroneously referred to as parts of speech are, in fact, signals of emotional tension. They must be regarded as expressive means of the language and as such may be effectively used as stylistic devices in the proper context.

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