Zeugma. Semantically false chain. Pun. Non-sequence results. Violation of phraseological units.
In the stylistic tradition of the English-speaking countries only zeugma and pun are widely discussed. Semantically false chain, violation of phraseological units and nonsense of non-sequence , indeed, may be viewed as slight variations of the first ones for, basically, the foursome perform the same stylistic function in speech, and operate on the same linguistic mechanism: namely, one word-form is deliberately used in two meanings. The effect of these SDs is humorous.
Zeugma - a SD, when a polysemantic verb that can be combined with nouns of most varying semantic groups is deliberately used with two of more homogeneous members, which are not connected semantically. This SD is particularly favoured in Eng. emotive prose & poetry.
Zeugma is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two neighboring 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".
When the number of homogeneous members, semantically disconnected, but attached to the same verb, increases, we deal with semantically false chains, which are thus a variation of zeugma. As a rule, it is the last member of the chain that falls out of the thematic group, defeating our expectancy and producing humorous effect. The following case from S. Leacock may serve an example: "A Governess wanted. Must possess knowledge of Romanian, Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, Music and Mining Engineering."
classical zeugma, the ties between the verb on one hand and each of the dependent members, on the other, are of different intensity and stability. In most cases one of them, together with the verb, forms a phraseological unit or a cliche, in which the verb loses some of its semantic independence and strength(Cf.: "to take one's leave" and "to take one's hat"). Zeugma restores the literal original meaning of the word, which also occurs in violation of phraseological units of different syntactical patterns, as in Galsworthy's remark: "Little Jon was born with a silver spoon in his mouth which wasrather curly and large." The word "mouth", with its content, is completely lost in the phraseological unit which means "to have luck, to be born lucky". Attaching to the unit the qualification of the mouth, the author revives the meaning of the word and offers a very fresh, original and expressive description.
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The pun is another stylistic device based on the interaction of two well-known meanings of a word or phrase. It is difficult do 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. There need not necessarily be a word in the sentence to which the pun-word refers. This does not mean, however, that the pun is entirely free. 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"
Sometimes the speaker (writer) interferes into the structure of the word attributing homonymous meanings to individual morphemes as in these jocular definitions from Esar's dictionary: professorship — a ship full of professors; relying - telling the same story again; beheld - to have somebody hold you, etc.
It is possible to say thus that punning can be realized on most levels of language hierarchy. Indeed, the described violation of word-structure takes place on the morphological level; zeugma and pun - on the lexical level; violation of phraseological units includes both lexical and syntactical levels; semantically false chains and one more SD of this group - nonsense of non-sequence - on the syntactical level.
Nonsense of non-sequence rests on the extension of syntactical valency and results in joining two semantically disconnected clauses into one sentence, as in: "Emperor Nero played the fiddle, so they burnt Rome." (E.) Two disconnected statements are forcibly linked together by cause / effect relations.
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