The polyfunctional Malay focus particle pun

Abstract

Abstract This is a study of the usage and semantics of the focus particle pun in contemporary Malay (Bahasa Melayu), the national language of Malaysia. Drawing on a sizeable corpus of naturally occurring textual examples, I propose a small set of semantic explications for pun, within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework (Wierzbicka 1992, 1996; Goddard 1998). The polyfunctionality of pun, and its diverse range of translation equivalents and effects, is shown to be attributable partly to polysemy and partly to the operation of contextual inference.