The main application of the government relation concerns the assignment of case. Government is defined as follows:
A governs B if and only if
- A is a governor and
- A m-commands B and
- no barrier intervenes between A and B.
Governors are heads of the lexical categories (V, N, A, P) and tensed I (T). A m-commands B if A does not dominate B and B does not dominate A and the first maximal projection of A dominates B. The maximal projection of a head X is XP. This means that for example in a structure like the following, A m-commands B, but B does not m-command A:
In addition, barrier is defined as follows: A barrier is any node Z such that
- Z is a potential governor for B and
- Z c-commands B and
- Z does not c-command A
The government relation makes case assignment unambiguous. The tree diagram below illustrates how DPs are governed and assigned case by their governing heads:
Another important application of the government relation constrains the occurrence and identity of traces as the Empty Category Principle requires them to be properly governed.
Read more about this topic: Government And Binding Theory
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—Martha Gellhorn (b. 1908)
“Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government, not the increase of it.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you can; but never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)