Warrant

The Technical Stuff:

The warrant can be expressed by a general statement referring to a rule, principle, and so on. In principle, this general statement will have a hypothetical form ('[if data] then [claim]'). The warrant functions as a bridge between the data and the claim.

Example:

"The connection between the data and the conclusion is created by something called a 'warrant.' One of the important points made by Toulmin is that the warrant is a kind of inference rule, and in particular not a statement of facts."
(Jaap C. Hage, Reasoning With Rules: An Essay on Legal Reasoning. Springer, 1997)