Word.ws English Dictionary

c-command

c-command noun: the relationship between a node in a parse tree and its sibling nodes (usually meaning the children of the first branching node that dominates the node) and all the sibling nodes' children.

Noun

c-command (uncountable)

  1. The relationship between a node in a parse tree and its sibling nodes (usually meaning the children of the first branching node that dominates the node) and all the sibling nodes' children.
    • Given the key assumption of Trace Theory that a moved constituent leaves behind a coindexed trace, we might formulate the relevant principle that transformations cannot downgrade constituents in terms of an equivalent condition that a moved constituent cannot occupy a lower position than any of its...1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 10, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 564

Verb

c-command (third-person singular simple present c-commands, present participle c-commanding, simple past and past participle c-commanded)

  1. (transitive) To dominate in a c-command relationship.

Forms of c-command

third-person singular presentc-commands
present participlec-commanding
past participlec-commanded
pastc-commanded

Origin of c-command

A shortened form of "constituent command." The term may also have been chosen so as to eliminate confusion in speech with the similar notion kommand.

Questions about c-command

What does c-command mean?
C-command means the relationship between a node in a parse tree and its sibling nodes (usually meaning the children of the first branching node that dominates the node) and all the sibling nodes' children.
What part of speech is c-command?
C-command can be a noun or a verb.

Words near c-command in the dictionary

  1. C-clamps
  2. C-clef
  3. C-clefs
  4. C-clip
  5. C-clips
  6. c-command
  7. c-commanded
  8. c-commanding
  9. c-commands
  10. C-cupper
  11. C-cuppers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: c-command (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “c-command.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/c-command. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.