The ironic syllogism: A rhetorical use of unmarked questions

Abstract

Rhetorical questions are an important feature of Israelite rhetoric as exemplified in the Hebrew Bible. This paper builds on scholarship regarding rhetorical questions and irony to reevaluate one form of unmarked question. Previous scholarship called it an alarmed or surprised rhetorical question, characterized by the speaker’s heightened emotional state and linked by a vav to a previous thought to which it lies in opposition. This paper argues that the construction is better understood as a rhetorical strategy, whereby the speaker takes the opinion or suggested course of action of the interlocutor and restates it as the conclusion to a syllogism, after providing premises that make the conclusion absurd. This construction is called an ironic syllogism, as the absurd conclusion is a pseudo-quote said ironically. The pseudo-quote could still be considered an unmarked conducive question since it expects a negative reply from the addressee.