ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an analysis of modus tonens. Modus tonens can be characterized by the interplay of two components, one dialectical and the other pragmatic. Modus tonens involves the dialectical component of inappropriately shifting the argumentative burden. Tone of voice communicates more than just how one feels about things that have been asserted. It also communicates how the speaker takes things to stand between her and her audience. Notice also that tone is used often to signal group membership. President Barack Obama serially employs tone in order to portray himself relative to his detractors as the only real grownup in the discussion. The added trouble is that tone of voice, because it communicates asymmetry, can also be code for additional assumptions and stereotypes that lie beyond the discussion. In President Donald Trump's case, he uses this authoritatively strident tone regularly, and it's an argumentative abuse of tone.
