Illatives

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of connective used in logical reasoning to indicate cause, consequence, or deduction
2. These elements serve to link clauses or sentences by showing relationships between ideas or propositions
3. Commonly found in argumentation, they help clarify reasoning by relating premises to conclusions

Etymology: "Illatives" is the plural of "illative," a grammatical term for words that signal a conclusion, such as "therefore," "thus," or "hence." The singular comes from Latin "illativus," meaning "inferential," which derives from "inferre," to bring in or draw in, formed from "in-" (into) and "ferre" (to carry). The same term also names a case in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian grammar, where it marks movement into something, as in "into the house." That grammatical use shares the word's root sense of carrying something inward, though the concept is spatial rather than logical.