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.
Word senseIn linguistics, a word sense is one of the meanings of a word. For example, a dictionary may have over 50 different senses of the word "play", each of these having a different meaning based on the context of the word's usage in a sentence, as follows: We went to see the play Romeo and Juliet at the theater. The coach devised a great play that put the visiting team on the defensive. The children went out to play in the park. In each sentence different collocates of "play" signal its different meanings.
Semantic fieldIn linguistics, a semantic field is a lexical set of words grouped semantically (by meaning) that refers to a specific subject. The term is also used in anthropology, computational semiotics, and technical exegesis. Brinton (2000: p. 112) defines "semantic field" or "semantic domain" and relates the linguistic concept to hyponymy: Related to the concept of hyponymy, but more loosely defined, is the notion of a semantic field or domain. A semantic field denotes a segment of reality symbolized by a set of related words.
WordA word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. Different standards have been proposed, depending on the theoretical background and descriptive context; these do not converge on a single definition.
Heteronym (linguistics)A heteronym (also known as a heterophone) is a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word but the same spelling. These are homographs that are not homophones. Thus, lead (the metal) and lead (a leash) are heteronyms, but mean (average) and mean (intend) are not, since they are pronounced the same. Heteronym pronunciation may vary in vowel realisation, in stress pattern, or in other ways. A heteronym is a homograph that is not a homophone, a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word with the same spelling.
Controlled vocabularyControlled vocabularies provide a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. They are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems. Controlled vocabulary schemes mandate the use of predefined, preferred terms that have been preselected by the designers of the schemes, in contrast to natural language vocabularies, which have no such restriction.
