single word requests - Subsequent, Consequent... Presequent?


Imagine the following:



A -> B



B is consequent (and subsequent) to A, because A implies B.


How might one describe A relative to B? "Presequent" gets a few search results... but perhaps there's a better-established word?


Another example:



Because it rained, the grass is wet.`



The wet grass is consequent to the rain. How can one make a similar statement about the rain itself?



Answer



You could say that the rain is antecedent to the grass getting wet. The Oxford English Dictionary writes that:



A thing or circumstance which goes before or precedes in time or order; often also implying causal relation with its consequent.



So, antecedent is often paired with consequent. They write further that in logic:



Hence, in various special applications, of which the logical and grammatical are the earliest uses of the word in English: Logic. (Opposed to consequent.) The statement upon which any consequence logically depends; hence †(a) The premisses of a syllogism (obs.); (b) The part of a conditional proposition on which the other depends. †(c) By some early logicians the subject and predicate were called antecedent and consequent.



For example, a usage in writing is:



1870 F. C. Bowen Logic v. 128 All Hypothetical Judgments obviously consist of two parts, the first of which is called the Condition or Antecedent.



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