A Semantic Interpretation of Ambiguity in Punchlines

A punchline is a sentence at the end of a joke which makes the joke, a creative linguistic form ubiquitous in our lives for people's amusement, sound so funny as to make people laugh. The reason why punchlines effectively drive their humorous effects home to the audience lies in the fact that they are unexceptionally imbued with ambiguity. This paper addresses the ambiguity in punchlines from a semantic perspective with a purpose to reveal how the ambiguity at different levels contributes to humorous effects of jokes. This study not only helps us to better understand English jokes but also improves our capability of using the English language for create humorous effects.