What are the two elementary building blocks of any argument?

Premises — the reasons that support — and the conclusion — the standpoint to be justified.

Every argument reduces to two kinds of statement:

• Conclusion (Konklusion): the standpoint that needs justifying — the point you're trying to establish.
• Premises (Prämissen): the reasons that support that standpoint — the grounds you offer for it.

That's the whole skeleton: one or more premises doing the supporting, a conclusion being supported. Everything more elaborate (the Toulmin scheme, syllogisms) is a way of making the link between premises and conclusion explicit.

Tip: When reading an argument, find the conclusion first — it's the claim everything else is there to prop up — then ask which statements are doing the propping. Those are the premises.