protasis

1. Grammar. The dependent clause of a conditional sentence, as if it rains in The game will be canceled if it rains.
2. The first part of an ancient Greek or Roman drama, in which the characters and subject are introduced.

[Late Latin, proposition, first part of a play, from Greek, premise of a syllogism, conditional clause, from proteinein, prota-, to propose : pro-, forward; see pro-² + teinein, to stretch.]

An older term for the antecedent of a conditional.

For the linguistic concept, see Protasis (linguistics).

In drama, a protasis is the introductory part of a play, usually its first act. It was coined by the fourth-century Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus. He defined a play as being made up of three separate parts, the other two being epitasis and catastrophe.

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