Response types to a direct question

The manual below is reproduced from arghXiv:2512.11487, which developed it over 1,950 direct questions drawn from 47 channels. The archive keeps it here for the same reason it keeps the Terminal Discourse Classification: submissions had begun to cite it, and a scheme that is cited needs an address.

The names are Latin because the named fallacies are, and for the same reason — a name that is not a description does not acquire a new meaning in each dispute it is used in. Two are not coinages: quod vide is the citation directive, and ad kalendas Graecas is Suetonius’s phrase for a debt due on a day that cannot arrive.

Within each group the order is by kinship rather than by frequency, so that the categories most easily confused with one another are adjacent. A coder deciding between two of them is almost always deciding between neighbours.

Counts are those printed in Table 1 of the paper and total 1,950 across 31 categories, of which 2 describe an answer.

The question is answered

responsio: The question is answered. The only category in the manual that needs no qualifier.; 214
responsio mutila: Part of the question is answered; part is left. Mutilus, maimed: an answer with a piece missing.; 131

The answer is a question

rogatio pro responso: A question is put in return. The commonest response of any kind in the corpus.; 268
ignoratio rogati: A weaker question is substituted and then answered. Formed on ignoratio elenchi, and meaning the same disregard of what was asked.; 96
onus ad rogantem: The asker is told to prove the contrary.; 51

The answer is withheld, and a ground is given

prius tu: The asker must answer first. Where both participants say it, neither question is answered.; 92
tu quoque: The asker is quoted saying or doing the same, and the question is left. The fallacy's own name, used as it means. Distinct from prius tu, which asks for order, and from onus ad rogantem, which asks for proof: this alleges inconsistency instead.; 23
rogatio vitiosa: The question is rejected as defective: loaded, irrelevant, or undefined.; 142
infra dignitatem: The question is treated as too elementary to merit an answer. Infra dig. Not negatio ad hominem: the refusal is on the question's level, not on the asker's.; 18
iam responsum est: The question is said to have been answered already. Checkable against the channel. A prior answer was located in 18 of the 109.; 109
numquam responsum est: The asker is said never to have addressed the responder's own argument. The mirror of iam responsum est, and adjacent to it for that reason. Not prius tu, which sets a condition the asker can meet: this states a verdict on the exchange so far, and asks for nothing.; 26
negatio ad hominem: Refused on an attribute of the asker rather than on the question.; 45
negatio ad malam fidem: Refused on the asker's supposed motive. Mala fides, bad faith: the reason for asking is impugned, not the question.; 48
quod vide: Referred to a document, a recording, or an image. The scholarly q.v., turned into an instruction to go and look instead.; 30
quaere ipse: The asker is told to find the answer, and no source is named. Distinct from quod vide, which says where to look. Quaerere is the verb for both asking and investigating, so the name states the instruction: do the asking yourself.; 35
omnes sciunt: The answer is said to be common knowledge, and no source is named. Between quod vide, which names a source, and quaere ipse, which sends the asker to find one: this holds that neither is needed.; 8
roga alium: Referred to a third party.; 31
ad vocem: The asker is invited to a voice channel, where the answer will be given. A transfer of medium offered as the answer. arghXiv:2608.02840 measures what the transfer removes: 31 per cent of turns reach their end in voice, against 96 per cent in text.; 14
ad kalendas Graecas: Deferred to a stated future occasion. Suetonius records the phrase for a debt due on a day that cannot come: the Greeks kept no kalends. The occasion arrived in 2 of the 55.; 55
testimonium privatum: Evidence is said to be held privately, and is not produced. Not alibi responsum est, where the answer was given elsewhere: here it is the evidence that cannot be seen.; 12

The answer is withheld, and no ground is given

idem clamosius: The original position is restated unchanged.; 96
copia sine responso: A long response containing no answer.; 29
risus pro argumento: A laugh, entire.; 78
signum sine verbo: A reaction placed on the question, with no reply made. A property of the medium. 25 of the 52 were laughing reactions.; 52
emendatio rogationis: The question's spelling is corrected. Retained over a coder's objection, on the ground that it occurred.; 19
ad spectatores: The reply is addressed to the onlookers rather than to the asker.; 66
retractatio tacita: The claim under question is deleted or edited, and the question loses its subject. Answered by leaving nothing to ask about.; 12
silentium loquax: Participation continues; the question is not addressed. Talkative silence. The responder posts a further 84 messages, at median, and none of them is the answer.; 116
exit ante responsum: The responder leaves the exchange.; 24
exclusio rogantis: The asker's access to the responder is withdrawn. A floor, not a count: a block leaves no trace in a public channel unless the asker says so. Where the responder mutes instead, the asker goes on putting the question to someone who cannot see it, and the transcript records a silentium loquax against the wrong participant.; 6

Not verifiable

alibi responsum est: An answer is said to have been given elsewhere. Alibi, elsewhere. The archive cannot check these and has not counted them either way.; 4

31 categories. Classification is by the coder and is not checked with the participant, for the reason given in Section 2 of the paper.