Papes o Japanese Impefect Puns Shigeto Kawahaa Jan, 2010 2 Preface Shigeto Kawahara Rutgers University
[email protected] 1Therationale This volume “Papers on Japanese puns” is a collection of papers on Japanese imperfect puns that I wrote between 2007 and 2009 (often in collaboration with Professor Kazuko Shinohara, the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology), although most ofthepapersappearinprintin2009 and 2010. There are several reasons to put together a volume like this. First, I believe that I have done a wide range of analyses on Japanese imperfect puns, and it is convenient to have a collection of relevant papers. Second, although as much as I liked—and still do like—the project, I feel that Ihavedoneenoughandamreadytomoveontootherprojects.This collection would thus serve as a closure on my side (though I plan to build my future research partially on this project). Third, related to the first two reasons, I hope that building on these works, somebody interested in this project can take up some remaining issues, and that this volume serves as a useful reference.1 2Abriefhistory Here is a somewhat personal history of how the research was developed. I was first inspired by acolloquiumtalkbyProfessorDoncaSteriadeattheUniversity of Massachusetts in 2003, and started working on Japanese rap rhyming, the result of which is included as the final paper of this volume. Professor Kazuko Shinohara and I applied the same methodology to Japanese imperfect puns, and wrote the third paper in this volume. Then, we decided that imperfect puns has lots of potential, providing a rich resource for linguistic analyses. In developing this research program, we also realized its pedagogical values because of its accessibility.