Two Types of Argumentation Involving Rhetorical Questions 33 implicated assertion is obvious (4). This assertion may be one that is accepted by both speaker and addressee, or one that the speaker is trying to persuade the hearer to accept (5). Both yes-no and content (“wh”) questions may be RQs. The answer to a yes-no RQ has a polarity opposite to that of the question: affirmative questions imply negative answers and negative questions imply affirmative answers. Thus “Are you the president?” implies “You are not the president” (6). The answer to a content RQ is usually a noun phrase or adverb denoting the null set, such as “nothing” or “no one”(7); e.g., the RQ “What can I possibly do for you?” implies “I can do nothing for you.” In a different type of content RQ the answer is not the null set, but a particular referent that the speaker has in mind. The speaker may supply this value immediately following the rhetorical question, e.g., “Who loves you more than anyone else? Why, your mother, of course” (8). Many studies of RQs in Biblical Hebrew focus on the use of RQs in poetry, and particularly in wisdom literature (9). The Biblical RQ can be used to make a strong statement; on the other hand, it is sometimes a English 82; Stockholm 1994) 38.45; J. SCHMIDT-RADEFELDT, “On So-called ‘Rhetorical’ Questions”, Journal of Pragmatics 1 (1977) 376-377. (4) See, e.g., R. QUIRK et al., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London 1985) 1478; J.M. SADOCK – A.M. ZWICKY, “Speech Act Distinctions in Syntax”, Language Typology and Syntactic Description (ed. T. SHOPEN) (Cambridge 1985) I, 180. (5) On the use of rhetorical questions in persuasive contexts, see, e.g., G.I. ANZILOTTI, “The Rhetorical Question as an Indirect Speech Device in English and Italian”, Canadian Modern Language Review 38 (1982) 290-302; C. ENE, “Rhetorical Questions within the Theory of Speech Acts”, Cahiers de linguistique theorique et appliqué, 20 (1983) 36; J. FRANK, “You Call That a Rhetorical Question? Forms and Functions of Rhetorical Questions in Conversation”, Journal of Pragmatics 14 (1990) 723-738. (6) Polarity reversal is a characteristic trait of RQs; see, e.g., E.N. POPE, “Questions and Answers in English” (Ph. D. diss., MIT 1972; repr. Janua Linguarum Series Practica 226; The Hague 1976) 46-47; QUIRK et al, Comprehensive Grammar, 825. There is a special kind of RQ in English whose answer does not have reversed polarity, e.g., “Is the Pope Catholic?” This type of RQ is used as a retort and implies that the answer to the RQ (i.e., “yes”/”no”) is the answer to the preceding question as well; see D. SCHAFFER, “Can Rhetorical Questions Function as Retorts? Is the Pope Catholic”, Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 433-460. On the question of whether some RQs in BH do not have reversed polarity, see section 3, below, and particularly n. 35. (7) POPE, “Questions and Answers”, 59. (8) Ibid., 59. (9) On the RQ in poetry, see, e.g., R.G. KOOPS, “Rhetorical Questions and Implied Meaning in the Book of Job”, BT 39 (1988) 415-423; L.J. DE REGT, “Discourse Implications of Rhetorical Questions in Job, Deuteronomy and the Minor Prophets”, Literary Structure and Rhetorical Strategies in the Hebrew Bible (ed. L.J. DE REGT et al.) (Winona Lake, IN 1996) 51-78; J.F.J. VAN RENSBURG, “Wise Men Saying Things by Asking Questions: The Function of the Interrogative in Job 3 to 14”, Old Testament Essays 4 (1991) 227-247. On the characteristic use of RQs in wisdom literature, see, e.g., J.L. CRENSHAW, “Impossible Questions, Sayings, and Tasks”, Semeia 17 (1980) 19-34; T.R. Hobbs, “Jeremiah 3:1-5 and Deuteronomy 24:1-4”, ZAW 86 (1974) 25; G.S. ODGEN, “Qoheleth’s Use of the ‘Nothing is Better’-Form”, JBL 98 (1979) 342. An in-depth investigation of RQs in Ecclesiastes is R.E. JOHNSON, “The Rhetorical Question as a Literary Device in Ecclesiastes” (Ph. D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 1986). Although Johnson’s main focus is Ecclesiastes, he also examines the use of the RQ in general in BH, describing its function on four levels: grammatical/syntactic, disputational, literary, and psychological.