{{no footnotes|date=May 2019}} {{lowercase}} In generative grammar and related frameworks, '''m-command''' is a syntactic relation between two nodes in a syntactic tree. A node <math>X</math> m-commands a node <math>Y</math> if the maximal projection of <math>X</math> dominates <math>Y</math>, but neither <math>X</math> nor <math>Y</math> dominates the other.
In government and binding theory, m-command was used to define the central syntactic relation of ''government''. However, it has been largely replaced by c-command in current{{vague|date=January 2022}} research. M-command is a broader relation than c-command, since a node m-commands every node that it c-commands, as well as the specifier of the phrase that it heads. Like c-command, m-command is defined over constituency-based trees and plays no role in frameworks which adopt a different notion of syntactic structure.
==References==
*{{Cite journal| last=Aoun |first=Joseph |author2=Dominique Sportiche | year=1983| title=On the Formal Theory of Government |journal=Linguistic Review |volume=2|issue=3 |pages=211–236|doi=10.1515/tlir-1983-020303 }} *{{Cite book | last=Chomsky |first=Noam |authorlink=Noam Chomsky |year=1986 | title=Barriers |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=MIT Press}}
{{Formal semantics}}
Category:Generative syntax Category:Syntactic relationships Category:Syntax