minor premise
1
8.6
- noun
- /ˈmaɪnər ˈprɛmɪs/
- Specialized
:
premisa menor
- The minor premise is that capital punishment deters potential murderers.
- minor premise and the conclusion
Examples
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It needs an additional or minor premise, such as "the United States can make Iraq into a democracy at an acceptable cost."
Academic text (2005) -
Now, since the conclusion is a nonsense statement, like talking about the taste of noon or the sound of six pounds, I conclude that the minor premise, that all human decisions are physical motions, is false.
Blog text (25) -
The minor premise is the point in dispute.
Blog text (25) -
But it would be the way that you could understand the minor premise of a syllogism because how would you know that?
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And it is precisely this minor premise about which the academy has been skeptical.
Academic text (2005) -
A syllogism is a deductive argument consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion derived from the premises.
Academic text (1997) -
Baude and Sachs may object that I have only challenged their minor premise—that the sort of methods originalism they advance is in fact the law.
Academic text (2017) -
In a syllogism, the minor premise states that all cats are mammals.
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The conclusion relies on the minor premise that humans are mortal.
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Understanding the minor premise is essential for following the logical argument.
Synonyms
A statement in a logical argument that names the subject of the conclusion
A statement in a logical argument that names the specific subject
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase 'minor premise' is partly transparent because 'minor' (smaller/secondary) plus 'premise' (a statement) allows a learner to infer it refers to a secondary or less prominent premise. However, the precise technical role in syllogistic logic (the premise containing the minor term that becomes the subject of the conclusion) is specialized and not predictable from the constituents alone, so a typical B1 learner without exposure to logical terminology would not fully grasp the intended meaning.
Etymology
The term minor premise comes from logic, where an argument has a big rule and a smaller example; minor means 'smaller' and premise means a 'statement'. The minor premise is the smaller statement that names the 'subject' of the 'conclusion', so it is the part that helps the rule lead to the final idea.