PREMISIS

In discourse, a premise (also "premise" in British

usage) is a claim that is a reason (or element of a
set of reasons) for, or objection against, some other
claim. In other words, it is a statement presumed
true within the context of the discourse for the
purposes of arguing to a conclusion. Premises are
sometimes stated explicitly by way of
disambiguation or for emphasis, but more often they
are left tacitly understood as being obvious or self-
evident ("it goes without saying"), or not conducive
to succinct discourse.
 PREMISIS
For example, in the argument
 Socrates is mortal, since all men are
It is evident that a tacitly understood claim is that
Socrates is a man. The fully expressed reasoning is
thus:
 Since all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, it
follows that Socrates is mortal.
In this example, the first two independent clauses
preceding the comma (namely, "all men are mortal"
and "Socrates is a man") are the premises, while
"Socrates is mortal" is the conclusion.
 ARGUMENT
 An argument is a statement
(premise) or group of statements
(premises) offered in support of
another statement (conclusion)