PunA pun, also rarely known as paronomasia, 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 is an incorrect variation on a correct expression, while a pun involves expressions with multiple (correct or fairly reasonable) interpretations.
PolysemyPolysemy (pəˈlɪsᵻmi or ˈpɒlᵻˌsiːmi; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from monosemy, where a word has a single meaning. Polysemy is distinct from homonymy—or homophony—which is an accidental similarity between two or more words (such as bear the animal, and the verb bear); whereas homonymy is a mere linguistic coincidence, polysemy is not.
HokkienThe Hokkien (ˈhɒkiɛn) is a variety of Chinese language. It is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. In Chinese linguistics, these languages are known by their classification under the Quanzhang division () of Min Nan, which comes from the first characters of the two main Hokkien urban centers of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.
Classical ChineseClassical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (; or , meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: , meaning "literary language writing"), is the language of the classic literature from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through to either the start of the Qin dynasty or the end of the Han dynasty, a written form of Old Chinese (). Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese.
Phonological history of English close front vowelsThe close and mid-height front vowels of English (vowels of i and e type) have undergone a variety of changes over time and often vary by dialect. Middle English had a long close front vowel /iː/, and two long mid front vowels: the close-mid /eː/ and the open-mid /ɛː/. The three vowels generally correspond to the modern spellings , and respectively, but other spellings are also possible. The spellings that became established in Early Modern English are mostly still used today, but the qualities of the sounds have changed significantly.
Lexical setA lexical set is a group of words that share a particular phonological feature. A phoneme is a basic unit of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another. Most commonly, following the work of phonetician John C. Wells, a lexical set is a class of words in a language that share a certain vowel phoneme. As Wells himself says, lexical sets "enable one to refer concisely to large groups of words which tend to share the same vowel, and to the vowel which they share".
Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩The pronunciation of the digraph in English has changed over time, and still varies today between different regions and accents. It is now most commonly pronounced /w/, the same as a plain initial , although some dialects, particularly those of Scotland, Ireland, and the Southern United States, retain the traditional pronunciation /hw/, generally realized as ʍ, a voiceless "w" sound. The process by which the historical /hw/ has become /w/ in most modern varieties of English is called the wine–whine merger.
