Semantic typology of tautological identity propositions and their argumentative value
Abstract
This article aims to describe and analyze the grammatical and discursive-argumentative properties of the tautological identity propositions, such as a woman is a woman. Based on a corpus collected from the internet, the propositions were analyzed, considering the semantic typology of these tautologies proposed by Wierzbicka (2003) and the treatment given to them in New Rhetoric, by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1996). The results point to a broad use of these tautological propositions in daily speeches, advertising, literary, artistic (music and cinema), humorous, religious and political discourses. Moreover, the meanings of these propositions’ express generalization about attitudes, events, people, and things. Tautologies are constructed formally and rhetorically as absolute, immutable and culturally shared truths, and to the maintenance of stereotypes.
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