This week we reviewed the tree hierarchy in terms of domination, precedence and c-command. Here is what you have to remember:
Domination is a relation from the top down: a node A is dominating his daughters and grand-daughters.
Exhaustive domination: it is the set of terminal nodes dominated by node A – such as there is no node that is also dominated by A but not part of that set and there is no other node that is not dominated by A but part of the set.
Immediate domination: node A immediately dominated node B iff (if and only if) there is no node intervening that dominates B but not A. Immediate domination means one branch between node A and B.
Sister-Precedence: node A precedes B iff a and B have the same mother and A is to the left of B (in M -> A B).
Precedence: node A precedes B iff neither A nor B dominate each other, A (or some node dominating A) sister-precedes B (or some node dominating B).
Immediate precedence: A immediately precedes B iff there is no node G intervening between A and B. In the case, M -> A G B, A does not immediately precedes B because node G intervenes.
C-command: excludes domination relationships. Node A c-command node B is there are sisters, and neither A nor B dominates the other.
Symmetric c-command: A c-commands B and B c-commands A.
Asymmetric c-command: A c-commands B but B doesn’t c-command A.