👉 In linguistics, a protreptic is a type of syntactic structure that consists of a single word or phrase followed by a set of other words. Protrepts are often used in conjunction with other types of expressions, such as prepositions and conjunctions, to form complex sentences. For example, in the sentence "She went to the store," the protreptic "she went to the store" is formed by combining the word "to go" with a set of words that describe