19 PARONOMASIA OR WORDPLAY? This specific option reflects a well-considered thesis, related to the definition of Hebrew wordplay suggested above. Being an am- biguous interplay between sound and meaning in a particular liter- ary context, instances of wordplay should primarily be identified and evaluated on that particular basis, namely with regard to the way in which they create both a phonetic and lexical-semantic am- biguity in their specific literary context. However, in literature on wordplay on proper nouns, the criterion to classify such wordplay ― in contrast to wordplay on common nouns, adjectives or verbs ― is often the “explaining function” this type of wordplay fulfills without paying attention to the way in which the interaction be- tween sound and meaning is equally constitutive in wordplay on proper nouns 57. To give an example, one could mention the play on the toponym Babel in Genesis 11,9. As the proper noun lbb and the verb llb (“to confuse”) differ in only one consonant, the wordplay is constituted by means of sound similarity. Since He- brew wordplay on proper nouns shows similar procedures in con- stituting the play between sound and meaning, as is the case with wordplay on nouns, adjectives or verbs, there is, from a linguistic perspective, no reason to classify wordplay on proper nouns ac- cording to a different pattern 58. * * * Names. A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns (Ramat Gan 1991); STRUS, Nomen-Omen. 57 Cf., for example, the “etiological” function of wordplay on proper names. See in this respect the studies of H. AUSLOOS, “LXX’s Rendering of Hebrew Proper Names and the Characterization of the Translation Technique of the Book of Judges”, Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls. FS Raija Sollamo (eds. A. VOITILA – J. JOKIRANTA) (SJSJ 126; Leiden 2008) 53-71; H. AUSLOOS, “The Septuagint’s Rendering of Hebrew Toponyms as an Indication of the Translation Technique of the Book of Numbers”, Florilegium Complutense. Textual Criticism and Dead Sea Scrolls. Studies in Honour of Julio Trebolle Barrera (eds. A. PIQUER OTERO – P. TORIJANO MORALES) (SJSJ; Leiden [in press]). Cf. in the same vein equally H. AUSLOOS – B. LEMMELIJN – V. KABERGS, “The Study of Aetiological Wordplay as a Content-Related Criterion in the Characterization of LXX Translation Technique”, Die Septuaginta. Entstehung, Sprache, Geschichte (eds. W. KRAUS – M. KARRER – M. MEISER) (WUNT; Tübingen [in press]). 58 Attention to similar mechanisms in the constitution of wordplays on proper nouns as well as on common nouns, adjectives and verbs is also pre- sent in BEITZEL, Exodus 3:14 and the Divine Name, 5-12; CHERRY, Parono-