The fallacy of accent (also known as ''accentus'', from its Latin denomination, and misleading accent) is a verbal

fallacy A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument that may appear to be well-reasoned if unnoticed. The term was introduced in the Western intellectual tradition by the Aristotelian '' De Sophisti ...

that reasons from two different vocal readings of the same written words. In English, the fallacy typically relies on

prosodic stress In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...

, the emphasis given to a word within a phrase, or a phrase within a sentence. The fallacy has also been extended to grammatical ambiguity caused by missing punctuation.

History

Among the thirteen types of fallacies in his book ''

Sophistical Refutations ''Sophistical Refutations'' (; ) is a text in Aristotle's ''Organon'' in which he identified thirteen fallacies.Sometimes listed as twelve. According to Aristotle, this is the first work to treat the subject of deductive reasoning in ancient Gree ...

'',

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

lists a fallacy he calls (''prosody''), later translated in Latin as '' accentus''. He gives as an example: The fallacy turns here on the varying pronunciation of ''ου'', meaning "where" in the first and third occurrences, and "not" in the second. These would later be distinguished in writing with

diacritics A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

, but they were not in Aristotle's time. Aristotle noted that fallacies of this form were rare in contemporary Greek. They are rarer still in languages like English that have fewer heteronyms. Accordingly, English commentary has tended either to omit the fallacy or to reinterpret it as a fallacy of varying word emphasis. By varying the emphasis in "

All men are created equal The quotation "all men are created equal" is found in the United States Declaration of Independence and is a phrase that has come to be seen as emblematic of America's founding ideals. The final form of the sentence was stylized by Benjamin Fran ...

," for example, one might argue that men (not women) are created equal, or that men are created (but do not remain) equal. Broadening the fallacy in this manner has met with occasional criticism.

References

{{Fallacies Ambiguity Syntax Verbal fallacies

History

See also

References