The Language of Argument

4 3

A r g u m e n t M a r k e r s

Many phrases are also available to signal that an argument is being given.

Here is just a small sample:

from which it follows that...

from which we may conclude that...

from which we see that...

which goes to show that...

which establishes that...

We can also indicate conclusions and reasons by using argumentative

performatives, which we examined briefly in Chapter 2. If someone says, “I

conclude that... ,” the words that follow are given the status of a conclu-

sion. More pretentiously, if someone says, “Here I base my argument on the

claim that... ,” what comes next has the status of a reason.

Examination of actual arguments will show that we have a great many

ways of introducing an argumentative structure into our language by using

the two forms of argument markers: reason markers and conclusion mark-

ers. The first, and in many ways the most important, step in analyzing an

argument is to identify the conclusion and the reasons given on its behalf.

We do this by paying close attention to these argument markers.

If , then

If-then sentences, which are also called conditionals, often occur in arguments,

but they do not present arguments by themselves. To see this, consider the

following conditional:

If the Dodgers improve their hitting, then they will win the Western Division.

The sentence between the “if” and the “then” is called the antecedent of the

conditional. The sentence after the “then” is called its consequent. In utter-

ing such a conditional, we are not asserting the truth of its antecedent, and

we are not asserting the truth of its consequent either. Thus, the person

who makes the above remark is not claiming that the Dodgers will win the

Western Division. All she is saying is that if they improve their hitting, then

they will win. Furthermore, she is not saying that they will improve their hit-

ting. Because the speaker is not committing herself to either of these claims,

she is not presenting an argument. This becomes clear when we contrast this

conditional with a statement that does formulate an argument:

Conditional: If the Dodgers improve their hitting, then they will win the

Western Division.

Argument: Since the Dodgers will improve their hitting, they will win the

Western Division.

The sentence that follows the word “since” is asserted. That is why “since” is an ar-

gument marker, whereas the connective “if... then.. .” is not an argument marker.

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