Diagramming counterarguments.

At the interface between discourse structure

and argumentation structure

PRE-PUBBLICATION DRAFT MANUSCRIPT

Please cite the final published version:
Rocci, A. (2020). Diagramming Counterarguments : At the Interface Between Discourse Structure and Argumentation Structure. In
R. Boogaart, H. Jansen, & M. van Leeuwen (Eds.), The Language of Argumentation. Cham: Springer.
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030529062

Andrea Rocci
Author’s information:

Università della Svizzera italiana

Faculty of Communication Sciences

Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics

Via Buffi 13

6900 Lugano

Switzerland

andrea.rocci@usi.ch

Abstract
The paper addresses the diagramming of counterarguments, i.e. of discourse moves that amount to
the presentation of reasons against the acceptance of the conclusion of an extant argument.
Counterarguments are of interest to those who seek to tie reconstructions and normative conceptions
of argumentation to discursive evidence and to the semantics of a variety of concessive and
adversative linguistic constructions. The paper reviews a lineage of approaches to the diagramming
of counterarguments originating from works in informal logic, A.I. and computational linguistics,
with a special attention to Peldszus and Stede (2013). An alternative style of analysis is then proposed,
which captures insights from Pragma-Dialectics, relying on confrontation as a primitive instead of
attack. The proposed diagramming system, which extends traditional diagrams of the argumentation
structure used in Pragma-Dialectics, is more expressive than the reviewed alternative approaches,
while remaining suitable for corpus annotation and ensuring a direct representation of the contribution
of the semantics of adversative and concessive constructions.
Key words: argumentation annotation, argument diagramming, argumentation structure,
counterargument, discourse structure, Pragma-Dialectics, rebuttal, undercutter.
1.Introduction
In this paper I present a part of an ongoing research on counterarguments. Generally speaking,
counterarguments involve the presentation of reasons against the acceptance of the conclusion of an
extant argument. In argumentation theory and in linguistics, a wide variety of terms is used to refer
to moves of this kind or to a specific subclass of them: attacks, defeaters, rebuttals, refutations, etc.
Here I will use counterargument in the above generic sense, introducing later terms and definitions
for more specific notions.
Counterarguments are the lifeblood of a good discussion and are of great importance for dialectic and
dialogic approaches to argumentation. Pragma-Dialectics, for instance, emphasizes how complex
argumentation in support of a standpoint grows dialogically as arguers respond to or anticipate the
critical reactions of their antagonists (cf. van Eemeren 2018: 37).
In other words, for pragma-dialecticians the design of argumentation structure – the choice of single,
multiple, subordinative or coordinative structures for supporting a standpoint– does not depend on
fixed logical and/or epistemological requirements, but is instead shaped by the response to actual or
anticipated critical reactions. Such critical reactions can concern either the acceptability of the
propositional content of the arguments or their relevance and sufficiency as means of proof, and can
amount either to the simple expression of doubt or to counterarguments. And here, as we will see,
things start to acquire a higher degree of complexity: when the antagonist raises “an objection that
makes clear why he does not accept the argument as a defense of the standpoint”, he ends up
“defending a particular standpoint of his own”, giving rise to a mixed sub-dispute (van Eemeren et
al. 2007: 193).
Thus, counterarguments (a) give rise to a subdiscussion, (b) which hinges on the acceptability,
relevance or sufficiency of a specific step in the existing structure of the original argument, (c) have
an argumentation structure of their own, and (d) provoke further developments of the argumentation
structure of the original discussion.
As I will argue in the remainder of this section, counterarguments also are of great interest to those
who seek to tie their analyses and normative conceptions of argument to the evidence provided by
language use and language structure.
As for language use, the discourse pragmatics of counterargument is of particular interest because
counterarguments are practices of “evaluation in action” (Plantin 2016: 255-256), providing us with
discursive evidence of the emic nature of the evaluative and normative dimension of argumentation.
In fact, the occurrence of counterarguments in discourse shows us that, for language users, arguments
are expected to abide to norms of reasonableness, supposedly shared or shareable within a community
of arguers. Furthermore, these norms can be grounds by which arguments can be evaluated and
criticized.
Certain types of counterargument can provide us with discursive evidence that criticism presupposes
a reconstructive analysis of argumentative discourse. Such naïve reconstruction – just like the
scholarly reconstructive practices for which it provides grounds – also establishes discursive
connections that are not overtly signaled and attributes to arguers commitments to propositions that
are not linguistically expressed. “It’s already well past nine and tomorrow you have school” – a father
might say to his son, who could respond with “But, I’m not tired, dad!”. Interestingly, the reply is
coherent only inasmuch it is understood as countering arguments in support of an implicit standpoint
like: ‘It’s time to go to bed’. What this pair of utterances teaches us is that the “deep structure”
ensuring the coherence of discourse and dialogue requires the reference to argumentative connections
that are not spelled out, tacit premises and, sometimes, implied standpoints.
Coming to language structure, it is interesting to observe, as many insightful linguistic analyses have
shown, that reference to the implicit parts of argumentation structure is also conventionally
incorporated in the semantic structure of certain linguistic constructions, such as the but introducing
the boy’s reply. As we will see, the wide array of indicators of concession and counterargument, such
as although, but, despite, however, in spite of, nevertheless, nonetheless (cf. Musi 2017: 11) is
particularly informative in this respect.
The conceptual contribution offered here deals with a specific point, namely the utility of
diagramming counterarguments and the proper way of doing it; its significance, however, should be
evaluated on the backdrop of the broader dialectic and linguistic issues evoked above. The following
sections examine a lineage of approaches to the diagramming of counter-arguments originating from
works in Informal Logic, A.I. and computational linguistics and proposes an alternative which
captures insights from Pragma-Dialectics and increases the descriptive accuracy of the diagramming
system.
2. Diagramming counterarguments in corpus-based research on argument
I have argued elsewhere (Rocci 2017: 91-95) for the general desirability of a transparent interface
between the reconstruction of arguments in discourse and linguistic accounts of discourse coherence
– in particular those that postulate an underlying discourse structure1 or rhetorical structure (cf. Mann
and Thompson 1988).
On the one hand, this would be beneficial to theories of discourse semantics and pragmatics. Simply
put, if an account of discourse coherence aims at making explicit what links the various passages of
a text as a coherent functional unit, or how utterances in dialogue respond to each other, it certainly
should lay bare when passages in a text convey the steps of a line of reasoning, or when moves in
dialogue advance an argumentative discussion.
On the other hand, the empirical study of argumentation would greatly benefit from a precise
anchoring to the linguistic and discursive structures manifesting argument. The extensive annotation
of discourse units in a corpus with rich information relative to their argumentative function is a crucial
step for corpus-based quantitative research on argumentation (cf. van Eemeren 2015), including the
study of linguistic indicators of argumentation (van Eemeren et al. 2007), and the discovery of
stereotypical argumentation patterns (van Eemeren 2016) associated with specific discourse genres,
activity types or arenas of social interaction. Last but not least, such corpus annotation is a necessary
step for developing reliable argumentation mining systems – a major breakthrough in cognitive
computing opening up a wide range of practical and research applications, such as the large scale
study of opinion formation and deliberation in the public sphere (cf. Peldszus and Stede 2013: 2;
Musi and Aakhus 2018).
Ideally, a reconstructive argumentative analysis could start from an adequate account of the full
discourse meaning and proceed to obtain argumentatively relevant speech acts and an argumentation
structure simply by filtering out what has no argumentative relevance. To my knowledge, currently
no generalist model of discourse coherence provides the necessary information to do that, not even

1
What Mann and Taboada (2006: 425) say about Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) mostly holds for all theories of
discourse structure: “RST addresses text organization by means of relations that hold between parts of a text. It explains
coherence by postulating a hierarchical, connected structure of texts, in which every part of a text has a role, a function
to play, with respect to other parts in the text. The notion of text coherence through text relations is widely accepted,
and the relations have also been called coherence relations, discourse relations or conjunctive relations in the literature.
Asher and Lascarides (2003) use the term rhetorical relations, although their theory is different from RST”. In fact,
Mann’s and Taboada’s (2006) overview article about RST can be read also as a general introduction to the problem an
theories of discourse structure, while the book by Asher and Lascarides (2003), cited in the quotation, is perhaps the
most systematic attempt at a fully formalized linguistic theory of discourse structure.
with regard to the sub-task of diagramming argumentation structure. This is not surprising given the
rather “deep” nature of argumentative reconstruction. In Pragma-Dialectics, in particular,
reconstruction is presented as the result of a number of rather unconstrained transformations of the
original discourse or text, including deletions, additions, substitutions and reordering of units (van
Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 100-110). While these transformations are well motivated, they do
significantly depart from the linguistic manifestation. Furthermore, despite the generative flavor of
the terminology, the transformations do not constitute a formal system operating blindly; rather they
rely crucially on the judgment of the analysts and their interpretation of the whole discourse.
One way of advancing this state of the art is to take an existing model of discourse coherence and
modify it to make it more capable to express important argumentative distinctions. This is what Azar
(1999) and Green (2010) try to do by modifying the representations of rhetorical structure of
Rhetorical Structure Theory to make them express the structure of complex argumentation. This route
is, however, fraught with difficulties (see Peldszus and Stede 2013: 17-19) and will not be discussed
here.
Another, less ambitious but more promising, way of proceeding is the one followed by Peldszus and
Stede (2013) and by other computational linguists, who adapt methods of argument diagramming
used by argumentation theorists for the task of discourse annotation. This approach will not allow to
extract argumentation from a full analysis of a text or dialogue, but, assuming that we are able to
select the passages where argumentation is to be found (the so-called argumentative discourse units,
ADU), the diagramming system will be likely adequate to capture the relevant structure. In order to
do that, Peldszus and Stede draw on Freeman’s (1991, 2011) account of argument macrostructure.
The result is a neatly designed diagramming system. This system proved good enough to support the
successful annotation of two corpora of monologic argumentative discourse: the pre-existing
Potsdam Commentary Corpus (Stede 2004), and the Corpus of Argumentative Microtexts (Peldszus
and Stede 2016). Especially the latter represented a precious resource for further corpus-based studies
of argumentation, including studies on the annotation of argument schemes (see Musi et al. 2018).
Interestingly, in devising this system, Peldszus and Stede (2013) did not consider Pragma-Dialectics,
which they see as prevalently concerned with issues of normative rationality and “not directly
applicable from a text-analytical and modeling point of view” (Peldszus and Stede 2013: 3). They are
right in claiming that Pragma-Dialectics is not directly applicable to the type of diagramming they
have in mind. It will be my contention here, however, that there is something to gain from a style of
diagramming closer to the Pragma-Dialectical view of argument.
One of the desirable features of a diagramming scheme for annotating ADUs in dialogue or text
corpora is the coverage of counterarguments. Counter-argumentative relations are surely needed to
understand how utterances and turns relate to each other in an argumentative dialogue – and many
forms of monologic argumentative discourse dialogically incorporate the voices of antagonists and
their actual or anticipated counterarguments, often to oppose them with counter-counterarguments.
Thus, even for the annotation of ADUs in monologue, in order to capture all the argumentatively
relevant information, the diagramming needs to cover counterarguments, and needs to do so in a
recursive manner.
Freeman’s (1991, 2011) account of argument macrostructure does feature a counterargument slot in
the form of two types of defeaters, which he draws from Pollock (1987), namely rebutting and
undercutting defeaters. Peldszus and Stede (2013) refine the notation of Freeman’s diagramming, so
that rebutting and undercutting are, not only conceptually, but also graphically set apart. The resulting
schema features the possibility of three forms of “challenger’s attack” of a proponent’s argument,
outlined in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Three types of attack according to Peldszus and Stede (2013: 8)

The graphs (a), (b) and (c) in Figure 1 show three ways of attacking a basic argument composed of
a premise and a conclusion. Peldszus and Stede (2013) offer the following example:
(1) [We should tear down this building.]1 [It is full of asbestos.]2
The two propositional units are represented by numbered circular nodes in the graph, and the
support relation by an arrow from premise to conclusion. One first mode of attack, corresponding to
graph (a), is to provide a new argument against the conclusion, as in example (2):
(2) P: [We should tear down this building.]1 [It is full of asbestos.]2 A: [On the other hand,
many people liked the view from the roof]3
Peldszus and Stede call this attack a rebutter. According to Freeman (2011: 20), “a rebutting
defeater may constitute evidence negatively relevant to the conclusion being argued, evidence that
the conclusion is false”. The term rebutting defeater, as observed above, comes from Pollock
(1987). As it will be shown, however, Freeman modifies Pollock’s definition. Peldszus and Stede
drop the term defeater, for the more general attack. They also drop the reference to the conclusion
from the definition of rebutter, as they consider also the possibility of rebutting the premise of an
argument. In this more general sense, a rebutter is simply an attack to the truth or acceptability of a
propositional content in the argumentation, be it the premise or the conclusion. Note that this is not
Pollock’s original notion of rebutting defeater.
The rebutter of the premise, corresponding to graph (b) in Figure 1, is exemplified as follows:
(3) P: [We should tear down this building.]1 [It is full of asbestos.]2
A: [Yet, nobody made a precise assessment of the degree of contamination.] 3
While Peldusz and Stede insist that rebutters function in the same way whether the proposition they
attack is a conclusion or premise, they also hint that (a) and (b) are different strategies, the latter being
aimed against “the argument’s cogency” Peldusz and Stede (2013: 9). In the following sections we
will see that an approach inspired by Pragma-Dialectics can throw light on the very different
consequences that these two “strategies” have for the commitments of the participants in the
discussion.
The third strategy of attack, corresponding to graph (c), is the undercutter. Our authors exemplify it
as follows:
(4) P: [We should tear down this building.]1 [It is full of asbestos.]2
A: [The building might be cleaned up, though.]3
Undercutters “question the supporting force of the premise for the conclusion” by pointing at a
possible exception that could invalidate the inferential step from premise to conclusion (Peldusz and
Stede 2013: 9). This is more or less Freeman’s (2011: 21) definition: “undercutters call into question
the reliability of some inferential move from premises to conclusion”. Freeman’s example of
undercutter can be rephrased as follows:
(5) P: [Smith was at the victim’s home the night of the murder.]1 [We have a witness testifying
that she saw him entering the house on that night.]2 A: [But, the witness has a significant
visual impairment. And she admitted that, due to a medical treatment, she was not wearing
eyeglasses at all at the time]3
Now, it can be observed that undercutters deny, weaken or question the implicative relation between
the argument and the conclusion. In doing so they interact with the functioning of the specific
argument scheme being invoked as guarantor of the implicative relation. It is tempting to examine
them from the viewpoint of the Aristotelian topical tradition and topics-based approaches to argument
schemes, such as the AMT theory presented by Rigotti and Greco (2019). In this perspective,
undercutters somehow deny or question the underlying semantic-ontological relation (locus relation)
supporting the inference. In example (4), a practical inference invoking the locus from the final cause,
the undercutter questions that tearing down the building truly is a necessary means for achieving the
desirable end of getting rid of the contaminating asbestos. In Freeman’s example, in (5), which
corresponds to the testimony subtype of the locus from authority, the undercutter denies that the
testimony has been asserted by a witness truly in the position to know what was going on. I will come
back to this deeper structure of undercutters in the last section of this paper.
For Peldszus and Stede, in order to ensure the descriptive coverage of argumentative text and
dialogue, it is important that the elements of their diagramming scheme can be applied recursively.
All three types of attack can be, in turn, supported by arguments as well as attacked by attacks. As
observed above, the countering of counterarguments is a frequent occurrence, not only in dialogue,
but also in argumentative monologic discourse. The counter-attacks are illustrated by the diagrams
in Figure 2, below.
Figure 2: Counter-attacks according to Peldszus and Stede (2013), including (a) rebutting a rebutter, (b) rebutting an undercutter, (c)
undercutting a rebutter, (d) undercutting an undercutter.

Finally, our authors briefly discuss the situation in which a rebutter is left uncountered because the
proponent considers that the arguments presented in in favor of the claim “will outbalance the
arguments against the claim” (Peldszus and Stede 2013: 11). In hindsight, this rebutter assumes the
status of what Freeman (2011: 29) calls an “even though rebutter”. The authors conclude that such a
situation does not require any special structure to be represented, it is just a rebutter left alone, as
the one represented in Figure 3, below, “where” – Peldszus and Stede would say – a rebutting
attack is simply followed by premises […] supporting the main claim, leaving the rebutter
uncountered” (Ibid.).

Figure 3: Rebutter followed by additional arguments supporting the protagonist's claim

Here I find myself in disagreement with Peldszus and Stede (2013) and it is a good occasion to start
introducing, more generally, how a diagramming proposal taking into account Pragma-Dialectical
concerns could improve the treatment of counterarguments with respect to their approach (and,
indirectly, Freeman’s approach). First, I do not think it is correct to say that meeting a rebutter with
further arguments supporting the original claim leaves the rebutter uncountered. Consider the
following dialogue:
(6) P: [Apparently, Susan is a serial shoplifter in the local mall.]1 [She was notified of these
charges by police this morning.]2
A: [Unlikely. She is a very rich person.]3
P: [Yes, but the police have plenty of surveillance camera footage of her shoplifting]4
It is quite clear that according to Peldszus and Stede’s annotation scheme the dialogue in (6) has to
be annotated as per Figure 3, as it does not correspond to any other counter-attack configuration (cf.
Figure 2). The argumentative discourse unit (ADU) in [3] is clearly a rebutter of the conclusion [ADU
1]. It is also clear that [ADU 4] is neither a rebutter attacking the propositional content of [ADU 3],
i.e. a rebutter of the premise, as in “She WAS rich. Now, her financial situation is dire”, nor an
undercutter of the relevance of the rebutter (“She might suffer of kleptomania”). At the same time,
however, we may still want to say that [ADU 4] is some kind of counterattack: it seems very strange
to say that in (6) the rebutter is left uncountered.
If we look carefully, there is something missing in the annotation scheme so that the three possible
types of attack in Figure 1 cannot be exactly reproduced as counterattacks. The missing possibility is
the rebutter of the conclusion. In fact, [ADU 4] is not just produced as an argument in support of the
protagonist’s conclusion [ADU 1], but also as a rebutter of the conclusion with respect to the
antagonist’s conclusion that it is unlikely that Susan is a serial shoplifter. Prima facie, the fact that
Susan is well off makes it unlikely that she should engage in shoplifting. Yet, one cannot maintain
this assessment of unlikelihood once the new evidence in [ADU 4] is factored in: an occurrence that
is a priori unlikely, becomes likely in view of the new evidence. As we will see, this perfectly fits
Pollock’s (1987) original definition of a rebutter. The problem is that, in the syntax of the annotation
scheme, you cannot have a rebutter of the conclusion at the level of counterattacks. This is quite
simply because such a second degree rebutter of the conclusion would not have any conclusion node
to target in the graph, as attacks do not have conclusions of their own: they target parts of the original
argument. In reality, the rebutter in [ADU 3] does have a conclusion, which is partially signaled by
the adverb unlikely interacting anaphorically with [ADU 1]. This conclusion can be rephrased more
explicitly as “It is unlikely that Susan is a serial shoplifter in the local mall”, as shown
diagrammatically in Figure 4, below, through the antagonist’s conclusion node marked as AC.

Figure 4: The diagram develops the analysis of example (6) trying to integrate what is missing in Figure 3, while remaining, as much
as possible, within the diagramming conventions of Peldszus and Stede (2013). It introduces the antagonist’s conclusion AC as a ghost
node, corresponding to the proposition ““It is unlikely that Susan is a serial shoplifter in the local mall”. With respect to the AC node,
3 becomes a supporting argument and 4 a rebutter of the conclusion. As it will be clear in the following pages, this rather baroque
extension of the diagrammatic conventions is not pursued further and alternative primitives are instead proposed.

More generally, one key point I wish to highlight in this paper is that all counterarguments, all
attacks2, have their own conclusions, because all counterarguments are arguments. Their ability to

2
I am using here the term “attack” strictly as it is used in Peldszus and Stede (2013), i.e. as an equivalent of
counterargument. As a reviewer pointed out, “attack” could have a broader meaning, corresponding more or less to
what Pragma-Dialectics calls “critical reactions”. This would also include critical questions and be thus broader than
counterargument.
function as counterarguments, as attacks against a target argument, depends on their more
fundamental nature as arguments capable of supporting the inference of a conclusion.
It is important to point out, here, that the gap observed above in the mapping of counterattacks (i.e.
of counter-counterarguments) is a direct consequence of a more fundamental characteristic of the
diagramming system in Peldszus and Stede (2013), of its ancestry in Freeman (1991, 2011) and earlier
in Toulmin (1958). In these approaches, counterarguments do not have claims or standpoints of their
own and are treated as components of the “macrostructure” or “layout” of the argument.
In contrast, in the theory of Pragma-Dialectics whenever an antagonist raises “an objection that makes
clear why he does not accept” the protagonist’s argument as a defense of the standpoint, he is ipso
facto “defending a standpoint of his own” (van Eemeren et al. 2007: 193). In example (6) above, as
A voices his objection in [3], he becomes committed to the standpoint: “It is unlikely that Susan is a
serial shoplifter in the local mall”. At this point the discussion becomes mixed: the participants are
committed to opposed standpoints on the same issue, each carrying the burden of proof of their
respective standpoints. Whenever a counterargument is raised in dialogue (or anticipated in
monological discourse) either the original discussion becomes mixed, as in (6), or a new mixed sub-
discussion emerges with the local confrontation of two standpoints.
Contrary to what happens with Freeman’s macrostructure, in Pragma-Dialectics counterarguments
are not part of the argumentation structure – even though their occurrence motivates the further
development of the structure. An argumentation structure is strictly an account of how a protagonist
supports his/her standpoint with complex argumentation. As for diagramming, Pragma-Dialectics
does have diagrams of argumentation structure, but, expectedly, counterarguments are not part of it.
And that immediately makes Pragma-Dialectics less attractive for discourse and dialogue annotation
tasks.
The approach I explore in this paper tries to enjoy the best of both worlds by proposing a style of
diagramming which includes the different kinds of counterarguments and, at the same time, makes it
clear how different kinds of mixed sub-discussions arise from them. This approach not only solves
the problem with counter-counterarguments (counterattacks) discussed above, but has a number of
further interesting properties, which I discuss in the following sections.
3. Revisiting Pollock’s defeaters
The proposed system, like those of Freeman (2011) and of Peldszus and Stede (2013) makes use of
the notions of rebutter and undercutter, originating in Pollock (1987). As noted above, these
notions have undergone some transformations as they moved from author to author, fading into
somewhat more generic notions with respect to their definition in Pollock’s theory of defeasible
reasoning. It is worth going back to those definitions, not only for the sake of clarity about the
baggage we want to bring in the proposed approach to counterarguments, but even more for the
insights that can be gained by contrasting Pollock’s focus on defeasible reasoning in “human
rational architecture” with a pragmatic and dialectical focus on speech acts in a discussion.
Pollock is interested in providing an account of defeasible reasoning. Also known as non-
monotonic reasoning, this type of reasoning is defeasible because, contrary to deductive reasoning,
it admits that the acceptance of a certain conclusion may be justified in view of a given set of
premises and yet, when additional information is added to the premise set, “that conclusion may no
longer be justified” (Pollock 1987: 481). Furthermore, he is interested in characterizing the
cognitive system of internalized rules allowing people to reason correctly, through chains of
defeasible and non-defeasible inferences starting from perceptual and memory states. The question
he seeks to answer is the following: “How should a reasoner employ reasons and defeaters in
deciding what to believe?” (Pollock 1987: 490).
It is in this context that he defines the interdependent concepts of “prima facie reason” and
“defeater” as follows:
• P is a prima facie reason for S to believe Q if and only if P is a reason to believe Q and there
is an R such that R is logically consistent with P but (P & R) is not a reason to believe Q.
• R is a defeater for P as a prima facie reason for Q if and only if P is a reason to believe Q
and R is logically consistent with P but (P & R) is not a reason to believe Q. (Pollock 1987:
484)
The two kinds of defeaters are then set apart in the following definitions:
• R is a rebutting defeater for P as a prima facie reason for Q if and only if R is a defeater and
R is a reason for believing Q.
• R is an undercutting defeater for P as a prima facie reason for Q if and only if R is a defeater
and R is a reason for denying that P wouldn’t be true unless Q were true. (Pollock 1987:
485)
It is clear that for Pollock defeaters, including rebutters, relate not only to the conclusion Q, but also
to the prima facie supporting argument P. A rebutting defeater is not just any argument providing
evidence negatively relevant to the conclusion Q – as it was in Freeman (2011). For Pollock the
rebutting defeater R is consistent with P and with P being a good enough reason for Q as long as
(P&R) is not the case. At the same time, R is not just a reason for believing Q, but a reason for
believing believing Q despite P – a stronger reason we would say figuratively. Pollock’s rebutting
defeater is a richer and narrower notion than the rebutter of argument diagramming encountered in
the previous section.
Given his interest on what a solitary “ideal reasoner” should consider epistemically warranted in a
given epistemic situation, it is clear that Pollock is only interested in the case of new information
defeating a prima facie conclusion that was up to that point justified. In this scenario conclusions
resting entirely on deductive reasoning do not admit any counterargument.
Given the account of attacks examined in the previous section, this is not obvious in a dialectical
situation. Correct deductive arguments do not admit undercutters. In a dialectical situation, however,
it is perfectly possible to have a participant deducing Q from P and the antagonist attacking the
argument with a deductive argument from R to Q. In terms of the previously examined diagramming
system this corresponds to rebutting the conclusion Q (cf. Figure 1, graph (a))3. Such a
counterargument, however, does not qualify as a rebutting defeater according to Pollock’s definition.
First of all, for all defeaters (P&R) is consistent, while in the case of the two opposing deductive
arguments either P or R must be false. The discussants cannot keep both premises in their commitment
store. If the antagonist is committed to R from which Q is deduced, he/she must be committed also
to the falsity of P, which entails Q. Secondly, in the case of deductive arguments R cannot be a

3
In view of the diagramming scheme in Peldszus and Stede (2013), another possible form of counterargument targeting
a deduction is to give an argument for the falsity of a premise of a correct deduction (rebutting a premise). This move
would not count as a rebutting defeater in Pollock’s book either. Pollock does not consider the idea of rebutting a
premise: either the premise is an input state (perception state or memory state) and cannot be defeated or it rests on
some argument, which would be typically defeasible, and can be rebutted as a conclusion. In the end, what the
antagonist would do is rebutting the conclusion of an underlying defeasible argument, rather than the premise of a
deductive one.
stronger reason for Q than P is for Q. Both are deductively valid and that’s it. It all boils down to
which premises the participants are ready to retract. For instance, the counterargument would be
successful in a scenario where the protagonist accepts R and is, for whatever reason, unwilling to
retract it in order to maintain Q and P.
More generally, it is important to stress here is that both a descriptive theory of counterargument in
discourse and a corresponding normative dialectical theory need to cover a broad range of situations
that do not occur in Pollock’s model of the human rational architecture. One thing is to examine how
new information can legitimately modify the justification of a belief, another is describing arguments
and counterarguments as speech acts in discourse and dialogue.
In the latter perspective, Pollock’s defeaters turn out to be a rather specific type of counter-
argumentative speech act, both in terms of their presuppositions on the state of the discussion and in
terms of their intended interactional effects. In argumentative discourse, not all counterarguments R
presuppose the factuality or even the possibility of P – the attack on a deductive argument examined
above is a case in point.
Furthermore, not every counterargument R presupposes that P is a prima facie reason for Q and that,
consequently, the protagonist was justified in maintaining that Q before R entered the context.
Arguers have to deal with irrelevant propositions presented as arguments, intentionally or
unintentionally fallacious arguments. In all these cases, the antagonist can undercut the argument by
pointing out its actual irrelevance, without conceding it had the statute of prima facie argument.
Different types of counterargument can be distinguished in terms of the concessions they make in
relation to the target argument. These concessions are inherently tied to counterarguments in
discourse, as witnessed by the interplay of concessive and adversative lexical markers, as well as by
the functioning of concessive yes…but patterns in conversation. Concessions can be characterized
along the two dimensions of the acceptability of the propositional content of the argument P (from
false to factual propositions, moving through potential and plausible ones), and of its relevance and
sufficiency as an argument in support of standpoint Q (which goes from irrelevant to fully relevant,
moving through prima facie arguments and relevant but insufficient ones). Pollock’s defeaters pick a
very specific set of options with respect to these two parameters.
While a full discussion of the typology of counterarguments with respect to their concessions is
important in view of a comprehensive theory, it exceeds the narrow limits of the present contribution,
which is chiefly concerned with diagramming. Similar considerations can be made on the intended
effect of counterarguments in the discussion. Here again Pollock’s defeaters pick a specific point in
the range of possible configurations: counterarguments that are able to “defeat” the original argument.
Postponing a fuller discussion of the issue of what is conceded about the acceptability, relevance and
sufficiency of the target argument, here I will focus on characterizing the different options at the level
of diagramming. I will be nevertheless able, in the concluding section, to state certain constraints on
concessions that are associated with diagramming configurations.
Having examined Pollock’s concept of a defeater, we need to drop it, for the time being, in order to
ensure that our diagramming system covers the full range of possibilities of argumentative discourse
and dialogue, unhindered by theoretical baggage that is specific to Pollock’s investigation of
epistemically sound defeasible reasoning. We remain with basically two types of counterargument,
defined solely by the nature of their target in diagrammatic terms: those targeting propositional nodes
in the original argument, and those targeting support relations. We keep the name of rebutters for the
first and that of undercutters for the second.
4. Diagramming counterarguments in terms of confrontation and support.
The diagramming system in Peldszus and Stede (2013), in keeping with a broad tradition of
computational studies of argument (cf. van Eemeren et al. 2014, Chapter 11: 615-667), takes the two
relations of support and attack as primitives. In doing so, I have argued, the fact that all attacks are,
at the same time, arguments in support of a conclusion is not represented explicitly in the diagram.
Here I adopt a different pair of relations as primitives, taking inspiration from Pragma-Dialectics:
support and confrontation. The first does not substantially differ from its namesake, while the latter
stands for the occurrence of a dialectical confrontation, an expressed, presupposed or anticipated
difference of opinion between dialogue participants. A confrontation can occur between a standpoint
put forth by a participant and the expressed or anticipated doubt of another participant (non-mixed
dispute), or between two expressed, presupposed or anticipated standpoints involving contradictory
or contrary propositions (mixed dispute). For diagramming purposes, we will be only concerned with
mixed disputes. In the proposed diagramming system, attacks are not represented directly, as they
result from a combination of confrontation and support.
The three basic types of counterargument introduced in section 2, Figure 1, can be represented as
follows in Figure 5:

Figure 5: Three basic types of counterargument: (a) rebutter of a conclusion, (b) rebutter of a premise, (c) undercutter of an argument.
Arrows with rounded points indicate confrontation. The letters P, Q and R, which stand for propositional variables, are used in analogy
to Pollock (1987). Numerical notation, graph layout and symbols mostly follow Pragma-Dialectical convention: + = positive standpoint,
- = negative standpoint, /= with regard to. The symbols P→ Q stand for “P would not be true unless Q is true”, an intensional
conditional similar to the one discussed in Pollock (1987: 485).

Perhaps the most striking difference between these diagrams and those in Figure 1 is the appearance
of standpoint nodes supported by each counterargument, which are in a relation of confrontation with
different parts of the original argument. In this way, the missing “attack” relation is expressed
analytically in terms of the new primitive relations of confrontation and support.
When the counterargument rebuts the conclusion of the original argument (a), the counterargument
supports a contradictory or contrary standpoint with regard to the proposition (Q) the original
standpoint relates to. This transforms the original discussion into a mixed dispute.
When we have a rebutter of the premise (b), the counterargument supports a negative standpoint with
regard to the premise P supporting the original standpoint. Having used P as a premise, the original
protagonist is obviously committed to its acceptability. Once P has been questioned, the protagonist
can either retract this premise or defend it as a standpoint +/P. This configuration gives rise to a mixed
sub-dispute on the acceptability of P.
When the counterargument undercuts the support relation from P to Q (c), it supports a negative
standpoint towards the conditional P→ Q. Having presented P as a relevant and sufficient reason for
concluding Q, the original protagonist is committed to some kind of intensional conditional P→ Q.
The precise nature and force of this conditional depends on the argument scheme and its underlying
topical relation. Also in this case, the original protagonist has the option either to retract this
commitment, or to defend a standpoint +/(P→ Q). This gives rise to a mixed sub-dispute with regard
to the conditional proposition P→ Q.
4.1 Descriptive adequacy of “deeper” counterargument diagramming
Let us examine an example of the diagramming system in action. Example (2), in section 2,
corresponds to the following diagram.

Figure 6: Diagrammatic analysis of example (2)

One thing that can be immediately observed is that the introduction of a node for the standpoint (2)
supported by the counterargument (2.1) creates a node that does not correspond to any actual
discourse segment. One could say that the introduction of implicit propositions in the diagramming
system could be viewed as an undesirable feature. We already have observed that the “deep” nature
of Pragma-Dialectic reconstruction and its reliance on a number of largely unconstrained
transformations makes it less appealing as a diagramming system for corpus annotation.
There are three separate considerations that can be made in order to respond to these concerns and
show that the proposed diagramming system not only provides a better account of the dialectical
properties of counterarguments, but also enhances our descriptive coverage of argumentative
discourse.
I. First of all, sometimes these standpoints of counterarguments are not left implicit. And when they
are made explicit, both in dialogue and in monological text, having a diagram node corresponding to
these discourse segments is necessary in view of descriptive adequacy. Diagramming schemes that
base their account of counterarguing on an attack relation may have a problem in dealing with these
explicit contradictory or contrary standpoints, which risk being lumped together with the negative
evidence that supports them, under the common label “attack”. Expression of the standpoints of
counterarguments is typically elliptical and anaphorical with respect to the original standpoint. The
segment unlikely in the dialogue in example (6) is a case in point. With the diagramming scheme
based on the attack relation, one can either lump it together with the subsequent rebutter She is a very
rich person, or annotate it as a rebutter of its own, further supported by the premise She is a very rich
person. The first solution is imprecise, the second is just wrong, because that segment does not
express negatively relevant evidence, but just an opposing standpoint. Instead, unpacking the attack
relationship in terms of the two relations of confrontation and support, allows us to account for the
functional equivalence of the examples with an explicit opposing standpoint with those where only
the counterarguments are expressed.
II. The second consideration in defense of the proposed diagramming system as a tool for analyzing
argumentative discourse and annotating corpora is the relative ease with which the basic semantic
structure of implicit standpoint nodes can be recovered from the target argument. Rebutters of a
conclusion are directly in mixed confrontation with the original standpoint, taking the opposed -/Q
stance. Rebutters of a premise do the same with the premise that they rebut, taking a -/P standpoint.
While the underlying propositional content and the orientation of these standpoints can be trivially
deduced from the standpoints they oppose, there are further “modal” aspects of these standpoints that
cannot be just deduced from structure.
Semantically, standpoints -/Q and -/P can correspond either to contradictory or to contrary
propositions. A standpoint like We must tear down this building can be opposed either by It is not
necessary to tear down this building (contradiction) or by It is necessary not to tear down this building
(contrariness). According to Pragma-Dialectics, in the latter case, we would have a dispute that is
both mixed and “multiple in a qualitative sense” (van Eemeren et al. 2007: 23).4 Furthermore, the
degree of certainty with which the standpoints -/Q and -/P can be entertained by the rebutting
participant may vary greatly. Sometimes the rebutting evidence is clearly inconclusive, so that, if the
context allows it, it is more charitable to reconstruct the implicit standpoint of the rebutter as if it was
epistemically qualified as less than certain. This happens, for instance, in the analysis of example (2)
provided in Figure 6, above – where the justificatory force of the rebutting evidence suggested a
reconstruction as Perhaps, we shouldn’t tear down this building. Both the choice between a
contradictory and a contrary standpoint and the epistemic qualification are relevant for the evaluation
of the argument and should be specified by the analyst in a fully-fledged reconstruction making the
most of the textual and contextual cues available. In a broader corpus investigation though, one can
be content of a more coarse reconstruction and just fill these slots with -/Q and -/P.
Similarly, at a first, more coarse, level of analysis, one can be content to reconstruct the standpoint of
undercutters according to the -/(P→ Q) template. In example (4), for instance, the reconstructed
standpoint could be something like The fact that the building is full of asbestos does not imply that
we have to tear it down. As we have seen in section 2, a deeper understanding of an undercutter
would involve uncovering the underlying locus-relation supporting the justificatory force of the
argument – in this case the locus from the final cause. The standpoint could be refashioned taking
into account the relevant locus: In order to get rid of asbestos, it is not necessary to tear down the
building. A topics based approach to argument schemes such as AMT (Rigotti and Greco 2019) could
even reveal different sub-types of undercutter targeting different components of the argument scheme.

4
The pragma-dialectic term multiple in a qualitative sense sounds abstruse and slightly paradoxical. The concept is,
however, quite clear. A participant who is committed to the contrary standpoint It is necessary not to tear down this
building is ipso facto committed to the entailed contradictory standpoint It is not necessary to tear down this building.
In this sense the discussion is multiple. It is not, however, multiple in the sense of discussing two separate issues.
Furthermore, the two standpoints stand in a relation of entailment, so that a “successful defense of the contrary
standpoint would imply a successful defense of the opposite standpoint as well” (van Eemeren 2007: 23).
This is a promising line of investigation that exceeds by far the limits of this article. What is important
to stress here is that finer analyses would not contradict the minimal reconstruction based on the
template -/(P→ Q).
III. The third remark in support of the descriptive and explanatory adequacy of the proposed
diagramming is that implicit standpoints such as those featured in the diagramming are routinely
indexed by the linguistics semantics concessive and adversative connectives. Consider the role of the
connective but in example (7), below.
(7) [Datacloud Megacorp are the most innovative tech company out there.]1, but [they ruthlessly
exploit their young aspiring employees.]2
Imagine (7) is uttered in a context where a young PhD is considering whether to leave academia to
join the –fictional – company Datacloud Megacorp. On the backdrop of this issue, it is natural to view
the two segments conjoined and contrasted by but as two arguments supporting opposite implicit
standpoints on the issue. More precisely, they can be seen as an argument and its rebuttal, as in Figure
7 below.

Figure 7: The conjuncts of 'but' as a configuration of argument and rebuttal with implicit standpoints.

The utterer of (7) clearly aligns with the rebutter, so that the first conjoint of but is understood as
polyphonically representing the voice of the other participant in the dispute, almost as if it were a
kind of free indirect speech reporting. This configuration mirrors the dialogic use of (yes)..but in
actual conversation (cf. Couper-Kuhlen & Thompson 2000). It has been argued that this configuration
is semantically projected by the connective but, whose semantics “relies on a pivotal inference
triggered by the first conjunct and cancelled by the second” (Winterstein 2012: 1864). For French
mais an argumentative analysis was proposed already in Anscombre and Ducrot (1977), and refined
and expanded by a vast literature, mostly in French. Recently, Winterstein (2012) defended this
classic argumentative-inferential analysis also for English but, comparing it with the competing
analysis in terms of contrast and refining it in view of a set apparent counterexamples.
It is sufficient here to recall a basic version of the analysis, harking close to Anscombre’s and Ducrot’s
original proposal. In order to avoid confusion in the presentation I will label propositional slots with
letters that match those used by Pollock for defeasible reasoning, instead of using the letters
customarily employed in the French tradition.
According to the argumentative-inferential analysis, an utterance of the form ‘P but R’ presupposes
that
• P counts as a defeasible argument towards the conclusion Q
 • R counts as an argument towards the conclusion Q
and updates the discourse context so that (P & R) is the case and R is a “stronger argument” towards
Q than P towards Q. The notion of stronger argument evokes a scenario similar to Pollockian
defeasibility5, and, more precisely his notion of rebutting defeater, discussed in Section 3. It is
however doubtful that all uses of but introduce rebutters of this kind. It seems that the use of ‘but’ is
compatible with a weaker definition corresponding to Pollock’s generic definition of a defeater,
where the conjunction (P & R) is not a reason to believe Q.
These matters cannot be exhausted here. Rocci et al. (2019), adopting the counterargument
diagramming proposed here and an inferential semantic analysis of but-like adversatives Ger. aber,
It. ma and Fr. mais, examine the range of counterargument configurations associated with them in
dialogic and monologic uses in a multilingual spoken corpus. What is important here is to highlight
how the full set of propositional slots (P, R, Q and Q) indexed by the semantics of but can be
immediately projected on the proposed counterargument diagramming scheme, irrespectively of their
explicit manifestation. In this sense, the present proposal responds to a basic requirement of
descriptive adequacy of discourse structure representations, i.e. being able to directly represent at
least those meaning relations that are linguistically encoded.
5. Responding to counterargument: Diagramming in a dialectical perspective
Being able to deal with responses to counterargument is essential for a diagramming scheme aiming
at a comprehensive coverage of the argumentatively relevant aspects of discourse structure. Not only
responses to counterargument abound in dialogue, they also are critical in accounting for monologic
argumentative discourse where anticipated or actual counterarguments are typically evoked in order
to be answered by the author. In section 2, it was observed that there is a gap in Peldszus and Stede’s
(2013) account of “counterattack”, so that one of the three modes of attack, the rebutter of the
conclusion, cannot be reproduced at the level of the counterattacks – making the system imperfectly
recursive. This gap disappears in the proposed system, thanks to the introduction of standpoints for
counterarguments, as shown by the analysis of example (6) provided in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Analysis of example (6), showing the countering of a counterargument through a rebutter of the conclusion

We can observe that in the diagram in Figure 8, the response to the counterargument constitutes both
a rebutter of the rebutter, and an addition to the argumentation supporting the original standpoint,
which now corresponds to a multiple argumentation structure, where the standpoint is independently
supported by arguments 1.1 and 1.2. This brings us to discussing how the proposed diagramming
system allows us to capture and further refine the Pragma-Dialectical insights concerning the
development of complex argumentation structures as a result of responses to counterargument.

5
Instead of referring to Pollock’s framework, Winterstein (2012) models defeasibility in a probabilistic model of
argumentation.
Given a simple argumentation structure where a standpoint 1 is supported by a single argument 1.1,
the three types of counterargument considered in this article can give rise to a set of nine (i.e., 33)
structural configurations of responses to counterargument (i.e. counter-counterarguments),
summarized in Table 1, below.
Table 1: Countering counterargument

Type of Type of counter- Extension of the original argumentation

counterargument counterargument structure
rebutter of I RCRC RCRC = 1.2 (multiple support of 1.)
conclusion II RCU —
(RC) III RCRP —
undercutter IV URC URC = 1.1b (coordinative support of 1)
(U) V UU UU = 1.1b (coordinative support of 1)
VI URP URP = 1.1b (coordinative support of 1)
rebutter of premise VII RPRC RPRC = 1.1.1 (subordinative support of 1.1)
(RP) VIII RPU —
IX RPRP —

For each kind of response to counterargument, it is possible to examine its contribution to the original
argumentation structure. In some cases the contribution of the response to the original argument is
unambiguous and clearly falls in one of the configurations already envisaged by the Pragma-
Dialectical model. We have already discussed type I configurations in relation to example (6):
whenever a rebutter of the conclusion is answered with a rebutter of the conclusion (RCRC), a new
independent argument in support of the standpoint is added. Type VII is also a clear-cut case: if
arguments against the acceptability of my premise are countered with a rebutter of the conclusion
(RPRC), what I obtain is an argument in support of the acceptability of the premise, giving rise to a
subordinative structure. As for types IV, V and VI, one can maintain that whenever I counter an
argument questioning the supporting force of the original argument, I am inserting a coordinative
premise necessary for the inference to remain viable. All these should fall under the category of
“complementary coordinative argumentation” according to Pragma-Dialectic terminology (cf. van
Eemeren et al. 2007: 216), yet further investigation is required to ascertain the specificities of each
subtype.
As for the remaining types of counter-counterarguments, it does not seem that they offer direct
support to the original standpoint. At least, they do not seem to fit in any of the usual argumentation
structures. Consider, for instance, type IX, where an arguer responds to an argument against the
plausibility of a premise, by showing that the counterargument’s premise is itself implausible
(RPRP). Example (8) corresponds to this configuration, as shown in Figure 9.
(8) P: [We should implement policies to reduce carbon emissions] 1 [Carbon emissions are the
primary cause of climate change]2
A: [Yet, a study recently published by Nature states that there is no clear causal relation
between carbon emission and climate change.]3
P: [You know, Nature has just put out a press release denouncing the story about this supposed
study as utter fake news] 4
 Figure 9. Analysis of example (8) as a rebutter of the premise countered by a rebutter of the premise (Type IX, RPRP)

We can see very well that the second premise rebutter in 3.1, [ADU 4], serves to make the content of
the first premise rebutter 2.1, [ADU 3], implausible. Yet 3.1 has no direct epistemic bearing on the
acceptability of the original premise 1.1.6 This could make us think that 3.1 cannot be equivalent to a
subordinate premise 1.1.1 and that this kind of response to counterargument does not extend the
original argumentation structure and has no place in it.
An alternative position, in keeping with the dialectical stance of Pragma-Dialectics, could be to
maintain that the RPRP in 3.1, in the context of the extant criticism, still does have dialectical
relevance for the acceptability of 1.1, and should thus be seen as generating a special kind of
subordinative structure. I think this is a problematic route to follow. In every case, even if one decides
to go in this direction and include it into the argumentation structure, it remains that the finer mapping
of counter-counterarguments presented here has highlighted the need of drawing new distinctions.7
6. Conclusion
In the opening section of this paper, I have recalled how for Pragma-Dialectics a complex
argumentation structure comes into being as a response to actual or anticipated critical reactions,
including counterargument. Despite the important role played by counterarguments in this dialectical
account, the diagramming practices of Pragma-Dialectics do not have a place for them. Diagrams are
used to make the argumentation structure explicit, but an argumentation structure’s task is to make
clear the intended relevance of the different arguments in a complex argumentation in support to one
standpoint, whereas counterarguments support a different standpoint, and possibly belong to a
separate sub-dispute. That’s why, contrary to what happens in the Toulminian approach adopted by

6
To be completely clear: the fact that the study (supposedly denying that there is a causal relation between carbon
emission and climate change) does not exist does not constitute a positive reason for believing that the causal relation
exists.
7
One anonymous reviewer does not think type IX counter-counterargument should be a special case. The reviewer
maintains that proposition 3.1 does count as support for proposition 1, though only in some context where an objection
such as 2.1 has been advanced. In fact, I believe it is necessary, in these cases, to draw a distinction between a broadly
understood dialectical relevance and support proper. In AMT theory, joining two nodes with a support arrow
presupposes that they are inferentially connected via a proper argument scheme or locus (cf. Rigotti and Greco 228-
242). By subscribing to the “argument scheme rule” (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 194-195), Pragma-
Dialectics also highlights this requirement. The requirement is not fulfilled for 3.1 with regard to either 1.1 or 1.
Whatever dialectical relevance 3.1 has for maintaining the standpoint is already captured by its being a counter-
counterargument of type IX.
Freeman’s (2011) macrostructure, there is no place for counterarguments in argumentation structure.
In this paper, I have adopted a different, yet compatible, approach, which extends the diagramming
beyond the structure of a single argument while acknowledging the mixed confrontations to which
counter-argumentation gives rise.
In the previous sections, I have defended the proposed diagramming system as capable to provide a
more adequate and insightful map of argumentative discourse units (ADU’s) in comparison to the
“standard” approach developed by Peldszus and Stede (2013) drawing on the legacy of Toulmin,
Freeman and (selectively) Pollock. In the last section, I have started examining the consequences of
this proposal for the mapping of counter-counterarguments. Initial findings suggest that the
diagramming helps in examining more closely the pragma-dialectical claim that responses to criticism
contribute to extend the original argumentation structure. While certain classes of counter-
counterarguments do fit in the argumentation structure as we know it, others do not and thus impose
a refinement of our categories.
The proposed diagramming system is not meant to substitute the traditional diagrams of
argumentation structure used in Pragma-Dialectics. Choosing one or the other is a matter of purpose
and opportunity. Given the extended diagram, for the relevant classes of counter-counterarguments,
one can follow Table 1 and mechanically derive the resulting complex argumentation structure by
attaching responses to counterarguments to the original argument. Thus, we obtain the classic
pragma-dialectic argumentation structure where only argument supporting one standpoint are
represented, as the product of the dialectical process of overcoming counterarguments and other
critical reactions. For many purposes, this remains the clearest and most practical representation.
On the other hand, as we have seen, the proposed diagramming is particularly interesting for corpus
annotation for linguistic analysis or computational modeling and ensures a direct representation of
the contribution of linguistic indicators such as adversatives and concessives.
Many of the issues touched in these pages remain wide open. I have only paid scant attention to
what French-speaking linguists working on argumentation could call the upper side of the
argumentative square (cf. Adam 1984: 111) the “horizontal” scale of strength presupposed by
defeaters defeating arguments and counter-defeaters defeating defeaters (cf. Rocci et al. 2019).
Furthermore, the finer investigation of undercutters and of their countering in terms of the topics-
based AMT model of argument schemes was only briefly touched. Finally, the limited discussion of
the argumentative semantics of but has merely suggested the interest of an extensive corpus-based
exploration of the mapping between the semantics of concessive and adversative connectives and
the structures of counterargument. Finally, the possibility of diagramming critical reactions that are
not counterarguments has not been explored.8

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