X は X が patterns


Context: A class is telling scary stories to each other and one guy tells a
story about a lion. Everyone in the class is scared but the teacher says:

> いやいやいや…確かにね、怖いっちゃ怖いんだけど  
>  自然に対する…それは恐怖じゃない？

I've seen the **X** ことは **X** が pattern before that means something like "It's
true that X, but". However, in the dialogue above, there's a similar pattern
but **X** こと is replaced with **X** って. Are these two patterns equivalent?
Similarly, while looking for an answer to this question, I've seen **X** に
**X** が mentioned - is this the same thing as well?

Bonus question: In what sense is じゃない used here? It seems like it should be
simple negation but doesn't ending a question with じゃない mean a sort of
confirmation like ね?




怖いっちゃ怖い is contraction from 怖いといえば怖い, which means "could be scary if you dare
to claim that it is", in other words "not scary unless you say so".

On the other hand, 怖いことは怖い means that you have to admit that there's a part
that makes you scared, if not entirely. So, they are similar but still
different.

それは 恐怖じゃない{HLLLLH}？ means "Isn't it fear (to nature)?", in other words, the
speaker thinks so and is seeking agreement with his idea. (However you can't
rephrase it using ね. In this context, それは恐怖だね↓ doesn't function as a tag
question but self-contained affirmation, and それは恐怖だね？ is a creepy rhetoric
that implies you will never ever let the opponent say no.)

