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
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”
—Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)
“[F]rom Saratoga [N.Y.] till we got back to Northampton [Mass.], was then mostly desert. Now it is what 34. years of free and good government have made it. It shews how soon the labor of man would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion of all his energies from their proper object, the happiness of man, to the selfish interests of kings, nobles and priests.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)