34 Adina Moshavi courteous means of issuing a corrective or criticism (10). It can be used as a persuasive device: the speaker attempts to convince the hearer to accept the implied answer to the question by implying that the answer is obvious (11). RQs express a variety of emotions, including supplication, joy, wonder, indignation, reproach, irony and sarcasm, among others (12). On the literary level, the RQ plays a structuring role in poetic texts, both opening and closing sections (13). Several scholars have discussed the use of RQs to express the premise upon which a conclusion is based (henceforth “argumentative RQs”). The RQ is said to establish a consensus, or common ground between speaker and addressee, which is then used to advance the argument (14). Two characteristic linguistic structures associated with argumentative RQs have been studied. In one structure a RQ is followed by a yk or rça clause (15). Van Selms terms this a “motivated interrogative sentence” (16). Coats analyzes a subtype of this structure which contains a RQ of the form X ym/hm “who/what is X”, e.g., Exod 3,11 h[rp la ˚la yk ykna ym “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” According to Coats this structure represents a stereotyped insult/self-abasement formula (17). Coats states that the RQ serves as the basis for the conclusion, which is the negation of the proposition expressed by the yk clause, i.e., “I should not go to Pharaoh.” Steiner notes that in addition to its use in deprecatory questions, the ...yk...hm formula is often used “to ask — indignantly and sometimes rhetorically — (10) On the use of RQs to emphasize a statement, see, e.g., CRENSHAW, “Impossible Questions”, 23; JOHNSON, “Rhetorical Question”, 87; RENSBERG, “Wise Men”, 245. On their use as a politeness device, see, e.g., R.T. HYMAN, “Questions and the Book of Ruth”, Hebrew Studies 24 (1983) 17-25. Scholars have noticed the same duality in the function of RQs in English; Ilie writes that RQs “can act as amplifiers or as mitigators” (ILIE, What Else Can I Tell You, 128, emphasis in the original). (11) See, e.g., DE REGT, “Discourse Implications”, 52. (12) The emotions expressed by RQs are examined in T.E. PRATT, “The Meaning of the Interrogative in the Old Testament” (Ph.D. diss., Baylor University 1972) 120-151. (13) See, e.g., JOHNSON, “Rhetorical Question”, 106; DE REGT, “Discourse Implications”, 64-73; YELLIN, “Selected Writings” (Jerusalem 1936-1939) II, 3-4 (Hebr). (14) The argumentative use of RQs in English is discussed in ILIE, What Else Can I Tell You, chapters 6 and 7. According to Ilie RQs can express either a premise or the conclusion of an argument. Ilie mentions modus ponens (affirming the antecedent) and modus tollens as two types of logical arguments expressed by RQs. On argumentative RQs in the Bible, see, e.g., W. BRUEGGEMANN, “Jeremiah’s Use of Rhetorical Questions”, JBL 92 (1973) 358-374; CRENSHAW, “Impossible Questions”, 23-28; HOBBS, “Jeremiah”, 25; HYMAN, “Questions”, 20-21; JOHNSON, “Rhetorical Question”, 99. (15) The yk/rça clause in this formula is termed a “consequential” clause (A.B. DAVIDSON, Hebrew Syntax [3d ed.; Edinburgh 1901] §150) or a “consecutive” clause (GKC §166). Steiner notes that consequential yk occurs in genuine as well as rhetorical questions and can even occur in declarative sentences, e.g., Gen 40,15 (R.C. STEINER, “On the Original Structure and Meaning of Mah Nishtannah and the History of its Reinterpretation”, Jewish Studies. An Internet Journal 7 [2008] 16-17). (16) A. VAN SELMS, “Motivated Interrogative Sentences in Biblical Hebrew”, Semitics 2 (1971-72) 143-149; A. VAN SELMS, “Motivated Interrogative Sentences in the Book of Job”, Semitics 6 (1978) 28-35. (17) On the uses of this formula and its parallels in the Amarna letters and Lachish letters see G.W. COATS, Jr., “Self-abasement and Insult Formulas”, JBL 89 (1970) 14-26; see also O. SCHWARZWALD, “Linguistic Phenomena and their Reflection in the Syntax of Interrogative Pronoun ym in Biblical Hebrew”, Beit Mikra 24 (1978) 86 (Hebr.)