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P. 65
ture IV
December 12
Yesterday, I tried to show that the argumentative function of dis-
course-segments was written into the language-system, that is to say
that the linguistic structure of the sentences occurring in those discourse-
segments directly determined their argumentative functions, and that, irre-
spective of the information those segments conveyed. What now remains
to be done is to see how that argumentative function is written into the lan-
guage-system or which semantic elements of a sentence determine the argu-
mentative function of discourse-segments.
To do that, in this and the next lectures, I am going to explain a theo-
ry which Jean-Claude Anscombre and I have been developing for a certain
number of years: topoi theory. Our use of the Aristotelian term topos de-
forms its meaning a little perhaps but I think we are more or less faithful to
the idea Aristotle put behind it. Last time, I told you that this argumenta-
tive function of discourse-segments could be discovered chiefly when those
discourse-segments were linked to one another in discourse. For example,
when a string uses a conjunction like so: “The weather’s beautiful, so let’s go
for a walk!” Or else, when there is a but, or an even. That leads me to try to
see what the argumentative function is to be ascribed to, to study argumen-
tative discourse-strings more closely. That is what we are going to be doing
today. In the lecture tomorrow, I shall try to show how the results obtained
up until now by analysing argumentative discourse-elements are as it were
prefigured within the language-system itself. But today we are going to stay
at the discourse level, and especially study argumentative strings of the fol-
lowing type: A, so C (A C), in which a segment A is given as an argu-
December 12
Yesterday, I tried to show that the argumentative function of dis-
course-segments was written into the language-system, that is to say
that the linguistic structure of the sentences occurring in those discourse-
segments directly determined their argumentative functions, and that, irre-
spective of the information those segments conveyed. What now remains
to be done is to see how that argumentative function is written into the lan-
guage-system or which semantic elements of a sentence determine the argu-
mentative function of discourse-segments.
To do that, in this and the next lectures, I am going to explain a theo-
ry which Jean-Claude Anscombre and I have been developing for a certain
number of years: topoi theory. Our use of the Aristotelian term topos de-
forms its meaning a little perhaps but I think we are more or less faithful to
the idea Aristotle put behind it. Last time, I told you that this argumenta-
tive function of discourse-segments could be discovered chiefly when those
discourse-segments were linked to one another in discourse. For example,
when a string uses a conjunction like so: “The weather’s beautiful, so let’s go
for a walk!” Or else, when there is a but, or an even. That leads me to try to
see what the argumentative function is to be ascribed to, to study argumen-
tative discourse-strings more closely. That is what we are going to be doing
today. In the lecture tomorrow, I shall try to show how the results obtained
up until now by analysing argumentative discourse-elements are as it were
prefigured within the language-system itself. But today we are going to stay
at the discourse level, and especially study argumentative strings of the fol-
lowing type: A, so C (A C), in which a segment A is given as an argu-
