Straw man as misuse of rephrase

The ‘rephrase’ relation between propositions is introduced in Inference Anchoring Theory to facilitate argument mining (the automated analysis of argumentative discourse). Examining an example from the candidates’ debates leading up to the 2016 presidential elections in the United States, we explore the relation between such rephrases and the straw man fallacy. Our aim with the structural characterisation of the fallacy is to work towards a foundation for the automated identiϐication of rephrase and inference patterns as a tool in computationally identifying instances of straw man and similar fallacies (e.g. ignoratio elenchi)