Script oppositions and logical mechanisms: Modeling incongruities and their resolutions

The paper presents a survey of all known logical mechanisms (defined as the resolution of the incongruity of a joke) and a first attempt at a taxonomy. It then explores the possibility of representing several concept of the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) using first set theory and eventually graph theory when it becomes apparent that sets are insufficiently powerful to do so. Since script theory was originally formulated in terms of graphs, this (partial) formalization of the GTVH is of some interest, since it shows that at least some concepts of the GTVH can be represented formally. Specifically, we show (a) that script overlapping and opposition can be modeled using set and graph theory, and (b) that there exists a class of logical mechanisms that can be modeled using mappings between subgraphs.