A series of messages in which one or more preconditions are presented as evidence for or in confirmation of another message (conclusion); any thought process whose tendency is to produce belief.
In Charles Sanders Peirce‘s theory of signs, the argument is defined as a specific form of sign.
It is part of the triad or trichotomy rheme, dicent, and argument.
This trichotomy, more generally, corresponds to the more traditional distinction of concept, proposition, argument.