Reasoning about articles

The argument often runs like this:

Student:

I know I didn’t get all the articles right in my sentences but you understood what I said, didn’t you? So, the articles are not necessary.

There are two premises and a conclusion in this argument. It is an inductive argument, and it is uncogent. That is, neither the argument is strong nor the premises are exactly true, although only one of these conditions would have been enough to disqualify it. In short, it is fallacious.

How many fallacies does it commit? Typically, we pick the one that is most obvious, but the louder the arguer protests that articles are for ornament only, the stronger the urge to lay as many charges as will stick. There are many classifications of informal fallacies but, according to Hurley (2006), these charges at least can be thrown at the culprit:

INFORMAL FALLACIES

Fallacies of Relevance

· Missing the Point

Fallacies of Weak Induction

· Hasty Generalization
· False Cause

Fallacies of presumption

· Begging the Question
· False Dichotomy
· Suppressed Evidence

Missing the Point (Ignoratio Elenchi) occurs when the premises support one conclusion but a different conclusion is drawn. When we suspect this fallacy has been committed, we are often in a position to identify the correct conclusion that suggests itself. Here the conclusion would have been: The listener relied on non-grammatical information for understanding.

Hasty Generalisation extends evidence that pertains to a selected sample to all members of a group. More immediately, just because I understood this particular message, if I did indeed, does not mean that I would understand all and any sentences where articles have been used sloppily.

False Cause occurs whenever the link between the premises and the conclusion depends on a causal connection that probably does not exist. A variety of the false cause fallacy is a simplified cause, where otherwise a number of causes are responsible for a certain effect. Here: my understanding of, let us stress, this particular sentence, uttered by this particular speaker in this particular situation, makes it seem as if articles are redundant. In actual fact, my understanding alone would not be enough to render articles unnecessary.

Begging the Question (Petitio Principii) involves leaving out a dodgy premise while creating the illusion of completeness. In our case, the argument begs the questions: ‘What makes you think that I understood what you said in the way you intended it, even if I say so myself?’ or ‘Why do you think it is my independent understanding rather than my willing cooperation and benefit of the doubt that makes articles dispensable?’

False Dichotomy turns on presenting two unlikely alternatives as if they were the only ones available. The arguer then eliminates the undesirable alternative, leaving the desirable one as the conclusion. An illusion is created that the two alternatives are jointly exhaustive.

Either articles are unnecessary or you didn’t understand what I said. But you did understand what I said. Therefore, articles are unnecessary.

Interestingly, this argument has a valid form:

~ A ∨ ~ B
B
________

~ A

The problem is that both disjuncts are in fact false, or probably false, which makes the argument unsound.

Suppressed Evidence is a case of leaving out some vital piece of information which, had it been stated, would have led to a different conclusion. The missing information in our case is that the original conversation took place in a controlled environment (classroom), that the listener did a better job of saving the message than the speaker did of ruining it, that the context was abundantly clear, and so on.

Articles are a curious thing, and it is my contention that even languages that don’t have them have ways of alerting the listener to a change of meaning where in English the articles would serve the purpose.