To Argue, Argument, Argumentation, Argumentative:
The Words

1. The Words

1.1 To argue ­

The verb to argue has two different meanings which will be referred to, respectively, as to argue₁ and to argue₂:

— To argue₁: “to give reasons for or against; to debate”
— To argue₂: « to engage in a quarrel; to dispute: We must stop arguing and engage in constructive dialogue (tfd, Argue).

The morphological, syntactic, and semantic differences between these meanings are crucial and clear.

Morphology

The word argumentation is derived from to argue₁ via argument₁; it refers only to speech in which a conclusion is supported by good reasons.

Syntax

— To argue_1 is followed by a that clause: “A argues that P”; P is the claim.
— To argue_2 is followed by a double indirect complement: “A argues with B about Q”. Q is neither A‘s nor B‘s claim, but refers to the subject of the dispute.

Semantics

— To argue_₁ means “to give reasons” (MW, Argue) and refers to a semiotic activity (verbal and co-verbal).

— To argue_₂ means “to have a disagreement a quarrel, a dispute” (ibid.), and refers to the wide range of interactions from a lively discussion to outright pugilism, as shown in the following passage, in which the detective Ned Beaumont questions an informant, Sloss:

Ned Beaumont nodded. ‘Just what did you see?’
‘We saw Paul and the kid standing there under the trees, arguing’
‘You could see that as you rode past?’
Sloss nodded vigorously again.
‘It was a dark spot’, Ned Beaumont reminded him. ‘I don’t see how you could’ve made out their faces riding past like that, unless you slowed up or stopped.’
‘No, we didn’t, but I’d know Paul anywhere,’ Sloss insisted.
‘Maybe, but how’d you know it was the kid with him?’
‘It was. Sure it was. We could see enough of him to know that’
‘And you could see they were arguing? What do you mean by that? Fighting?’
‘No, but standing like they were having an argument. You know how you can tell when people are arguing sometimes by the way they stand’
Ned Beaumont smiled mirthlessly. ‘Yes, if one of them’s standing on the other’s face.’ His smile vanished.
Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key, [1931][1].

1.2 Argument ­

The noun an argument inherits the two meanings of to argue; an argument₁ is a “good reason”, an argument₂ is a “dispute”, possibly including argument₁.
Grimshaw’s book, Conflict Talk. Sociolinguistic Investigations of Arguments in Conversation (1990), deals exclusively deals with arguments₂ “disputes”, and not at all with arguments_1, “good reasons”.

Argument can have two other meanings
Argument₃, as “the abstract, the theme, the subject matter” (of a literary work, etc.).
Argument₄, in mathematics, the variable associated to a function

“Argument is War” — Lakoff and Johnson have discussed the famous equivalence “argument is war”:

Let us start with the concept argument and the conceptual metaphor argument is war. This metaphor is reflected in our everyday language by a wide variety of expressions:

Your claims are indefensible.
He attacked every weak point in my argument.
His criticisms were right on target.
I demolished his argument. […]

“We can actually win or lose arguments” (1980, p. 4)

Lakoff and Johnson call this “the concept argument”. If the preceding conclusion is correct, then, there are not one but two concepts of argument. To argue₂ and argument₂ may be associated with some kind of war; but what about argument₁ and to argue₁?

If interlinguistic comparisons can tell anything about words used as concepts, note that, in French, the first set of metaphors is easily translated word for word; but the expression “we can actually win or lose arguments” is not.

The words to argue, argument, and argumentation have clearly recognizable counterparts in French or Spanish, or in the Romance languages in general:

French argumenter, argument, argumentation
Spanish argumentar, argumento, argumentación

This graphic illustration of the proximity of these words certainly favors the internationalization of the concept. However, there are deep differences between their respective meanings, which can be roughly represented as follows:

English

dispute

good reason

topic

 

French

good reason

topic

 

Spanish

good reason

topic

The French word argument and the Spanish word argumento never refer to a dispute. The field of argumentation studies develops from the common meaning of argument₁, “good reason”.

This suggests that the meaning of to argue₂, argument₂ in a language is independent of the concept referred to by the family to argue₁, argument₁, argumentation.

1.3 Argumentative

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the adjective argumentative shares the two meanings of its morphological base, argument: « controversial » and « disputatious » (MW, Argumentative). The Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary, however, is more categorical (MWLD, Argumentative):

Argumentative: tending to argue; having or showing a tendency to disagree or argue with other people in an angry way: quarrelsome.

An argumentative person
He became more argumentative during the debate.
An argumentative essay.

By default, in this dictionary, argumentative will be attached to the family “argumentation” (argumentative₁), that is, a semantically derived of argument₁ “good reason”, unless contextually clear or otherwise specified. An argumentative essay is taken to be “an essay that develops an argumentation”; when referring to “a polemical essay” (argumentative₂), its quarrelsome character will be explicitly mentioned.

2. Divergent orientations: the words argumenter, argument  vs arguer, argutie in French

In French, from a morphological point of view, the verb arguer is the basic verb from which all the argu- words are derived:

arguer   → un argument      → argumenter       → une argumentation, etc
« an argument »     « to argue »          « an argumentation », etc.

But arguer_F must be distinguished; to argue does not match argumenter_F, nor does arguer_F. There is a semantic discontinuity between arguer_F and argumenter_F. When S1 says:

S:   — Pierre argumente en faveur de P, “Peter argues that P”

S considers that Peter does give arguments_F. If he or she says:

S:   — Pierre argue que… “Peter argues_F that so-and-so”

S is simply quoting the argumentative discourse of Peter without taking a position on the validity of the arguments offered by Peter, and even suggesting that they might be fallacious. In a newspaper the construction:

The extreme right argues_F that…

introduces an argumentation_F presented as weak or invalid.
That is, the verbs arguer_F and argumenter_F have opposite orientations. The former values discourse content as arguments, while the latter suggests that it only presents pseudo-arguments.

Quibble can be translated in French as argutie_F, a word derived from arguer_F:

These people are the manipulated agents of subversion, carrying out instructions and rehashing quibbles [« répétant des arguties »].

Arguer_F and argutie_F are used only occasionally. Arguer_F can be replaced by argument_F between quotes. Thus, a pro-wind farm group quotes the arguments of its opponents, the anti-wind farm group, as follows:

Let’s look at some of the anti-wind farms ‘arguments’
(Complete example, see Convergent argumentation)

The concept of argument, and argumentation studies, benefit from the strong positive orientation that the words argument and argumentation have in ordinary language.
The same is true for the word and the concept of dialogue, see Interaction, Dialogue, Polyphony.

---

[1] Quoted after Dashiell Hammett, The Four Great Novels. Picador, 1982. P. 725-726.