A TEXT-PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO MOOT QUESTIONS IN ARABIC REDA A. H. MAHMOUD University of al-Minya, Egypt 1. Introduction Moot questions provoke disagreement, dispute and doubt. They result in indecisive answers and incompatible conclusions. Unlike other questions in normal discourse, moot questions are intentionally utilized by the questioner to concentrate on the questioned diverse points of views, not to resolve them but to increase their intensity. Moot questions typify a growing phenomenon in Arabic discourse, particularly in social and political TV arguments and other public arguments as well. Social and political mobility in the Arab world is among the essential factors that has led to this phenomenon. In these face-to-face arguments, the debater directs provocative questions to two or more persons with diverse ideologies and attitudes. These questions and their conlicting answers make up whole arguments over modernist ideas among diferent speakers who refute, reject, and rarely come to terms with certain issues of modernism, war, and political, religious and social reform. Consider the following question and compare its possible answers (1) a. kayfa tαrαα ddiimuqrααṭiyya alʕαrαbiyya almazʕuuma? “How do you see the alleged Arabic democracy?” b. Ɂanta ʕala ħαqq, laa tuujad ladayna diimuqrααṭiyya walaa ħurriyya walaa Ɂayy šeeɁ. “You’re right. We don’t have democracy, freedom, nor anything else.” c. limaaða tunkiruuna ddiimoqrααṭiyya llati taʕiišuunaha Ɂalaan? naʕam ladayna diimuqrααṭiyya waħurriyya. “Why do you deny the democracy you practice now? Yes, we have democracy and freedom.” The above question is similar to other provocative questions under investigation, and its responses generally relect the degree of disagreement in the answers to other moot questions. In the question in (1a), the debater proposes a certain issue ddiimuqrααṭiyya alʕαrαbiyya almazʕuuma “the alleged Arabic democracy” in a negative way by using the modiier almazʕuuma “the alleged.” In the answer in (1b), the irst respondent accepts the proposition of the debater in (1a), and adds more issues to support his opinion, e.g. walaa ħurriyya walaa Ɂayy šeeɁ “and no