Suppressed Premises

The following arguments depend for their validity on suppressed premises of various kinds. For each of them, list enough suppressed premises to make the argument valid. This might require several suppressed premises of various kinds. Then put the arguments into Standard Form and Diagram them.

1. Britney Spears is under age thirty-five. Therefore, she cannot run for president of the United States.

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2. Nixon couldn’t have been president in 1950 because he was still in the Senate.

3. There must not be any survivors, since they would have been found by now.

4. Lincoln could not have met Washington, because Washington was dead before Lincoln was born.

5. That’s not modern poetry; you can understand it.

6. Harold can’t play in the Super Bowl, because he broke his leg.

7. Dan is either stupid or very cunning, so he must be stupid.

8. Susan refuses to work on Sundays, which shows that she is lazy and inflexible.

9. Jim told me that Mary is a professor, so she can’t be a student, since professors must already have degrees.

10. This burglar alarm won’t work unless we are lucky or the burglar uses the front door, so we can’t count on it.