Adina Moshavi, «Two Types of Argumentation Involving Rhetorical Questions in Biblical Hebrew Dialogue», Vol. 90 (2009) 32-46
Rhetorical questions (henceforth RQs) often express a premise in a logical argument. Although the use of RQs in arguments has been widely noted, the modes of reasoning underlying the arguments have not received sufficient attention. The present study investigates argumentative RQs in the prose dialogue in Genesis through Kings in the light of pragmatic argumentation theory. Two logical forms, modus tollens and denying the antecedent, are identified as accounting for the majority of arguments expressed by RQs. The first type is generally intended to deductively establish its conclusion, while the second, formally invalid form is used presumptively to challenge the addressee to justify his position. There is also a presumptive variety of the modus tollens argument, which is based on a subjective premise. Both modus tollens and denying the antecedent have similar linguistic representations and can be effective means of refusing directives.
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AN I MADVE R S I O N E S
Two Types of Argumentation Involving Rhetorical Questions
in Biblical Hebrew Dialogue (1)
Rhetorical questions in Biblical Hebrew have received a fair amount of
attention in the scholarly literature. Rhetorical questions (henceforth RQs)
serve a variety of discourse functions in Biblical dialogue, including, among
other uses, the expression of a premise in a logical argument. The use of
RQs in arguments has been widely noted by Biblical scholars, and a number
of characteristic linguistic forms used to express the arguments have been
studied in detail. The modes of reasoning underlying the arguments,
however, have not received sufficient attention. The present study
investigates the types of argumentation expressed by RQs in Biblical
Hebrew, based on a systematic examination of the prose dialogue in
Genesis through Kings. The majority of the arguments were found to have
one of two forms: modus tollens (also known as denying the consequent),
and denying the antecedent (2). Given the conditional, “If P then Qâ€, where
P is the antecedent and Q the consequent, modus tollens arguments seek to
demonstrate the falsity of P by means of denying Q, while arguments which
deny the antecedent seek to demonstrate the falsity of Q by means of
denying P. Modus tollens is a deductively valid mode of argumentation,
while denying the antecedent is formally invalid. The two types of
arguments are examined in the light of pragmatic argumentation theory. It is
shown that despite the significant differences between modus tollens and
denying the antecedent, the two types have similar linguistic representations
and can be used to similar effect in conversational discourse.
1. Rhetorical questions in the scholarly literature
RQs are questions on the semantic level, defining a set of possible
answers, and are formally classified as interrogative. In contrast to the
genuine question, a RQ is not a request for information, but an implicit
assertion (3). RQs occur in contexts in which the speaker believes that the
(1) An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the Joint Conference of the
Academy of the Hebrew Language and the Hebrew Language Departments of the Israeli
Universities, Haifa University, July 14, 2007. I am grateful to Richard Steiner and Ed
Greenstein for helpful discussions of rhetorical questions in the Bible and for bringing
several references to my attention. I would like to thank Mark Steiner for his helpful
comments on a draft of this article.
(2) Modus tollens is short for modus tollendo tollens, “the mode that denies by
denyingâ€. A number of other modes of argumentation were also identified but are not
analyzed in detail in this paper; see n. 44.
(3) See, e.g., C. ILIE, What Else Can I Tell You? A Pragmatic Study of English
Rhetorical Questions as Discursive and Argumentative Acts (Stockholm Studies in
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