(11) Near him
i
, Dan
i
saw a snake.
In this sentence, the NP him is not dominated by another NP, so the
Wrst cyclic node dominating [
NP
him] is the S node; this node also
dominates Dan. Dan is thus kommanded and preceded by him.
S
PP NP VP
PNPNV NP
near Dan saw
NDN
him a snake
Such a conWguration should trigger a condition C violation. However the
sentence is grammatical. It appears as if any branching—not just NP or S
nodes—above the antecedent blocks the kommand relation.
The fact that kommand is typically used in combination with pre-
cedence is also suspicious. In English, the trees branch to the right.
This means that material lower in the tree is usually preceded by
material higher in the tree. Consider the following facts of Malagasy,
a VOS language, where the branching is presumably leftwards (data
from Reinhart 1983: 47, attributed to Ed Keenan):
(13) (a) namono azy ny anadahin-dRakoto
kill him the sister-of-Rakoto
‘‘Rakoto
i
’s sister killed him
i

.’’
(b) *namono ny anadahin-dRakoto izy
kill the sister-of-Rakoto he
‘‘He
i
killed Rakoto
i
’s sister.’’
Under the ‘‘kommand and precede’’ version of the binding conditions
we predict the reverse grammaticality judgments. In (13a), azy ‘‘him’’
both precedes and kommands Rakoto, so by condition C, coreference
here should be impossible, contrary to fact. The unacceptability of
(13b) is not predicted to be a condition C violation under the ‘kom-
mand and precede’ either, since izy does not precede Rakoto.5
5 Nor is it a condition B violation, since Rakoto is in a diVerent cyclic domain (NP) than
the pronoun.
50 preliminaries
These kinds of facts motivate Reinhart’s ‘‘c-command’’ (or constituent
command6), which eliminates reference to both precedence and cyclic
nodes.IgiveWrst an informal deWnition here.
(14) C-command (informal)
A node c-commands its sisters and all the daughters (and grand-
daughters and great-granddaughters, etc.) of its sisters.
Consider the tree in (15). The node A c-commands all the nodes in the
circle. It doesn’t c-command any others:
M
NO
A B
CD
EFGH

IJ
That is, A c-commands its sister (B) and all the nodes dominated by its
sister (C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J). Consider the same tree, but look at the
nodes c-commanded by G:
()M
NO
A
B
CD
EFG
H
IJ
G c-commands only H (its sister). Notice that it does not c-command C,
E, F, I, or J. C-command is a relation that holds between sisters and
among the daughters of its sister (nieces). It never holds between cousins
(daughters of two distinct sisters) or between a mother and daughter.
6 Barker and Pullum (1990) attribute the name to G. N. Clements.
c-command and government 51
The c-command relation is actually composed of two smaller rela-
tions (which we will—somewhat counter-intuitively—deWne in terms
of the larger relation). The Wrst is the sisterhood relation or symmetric
c-command:
(17) Symmetric c-command
A symmetrically c-commands B, if A c-commands B and B
c-commands A.
Asymmetric c-command is the kind that holds between an aunt and
her nieces:
(18) Asymmetric c-command
A asymmetrically c-commands B if A c-commands B but B does
not c-command A.

Consider again the tree in (16) (repeated here as (19)):
()M
NO
AB
CD
EFGH
IJ
In this tree, N and O symmetrically c-command each other (as do all
other pairs of sisters). However, N asymmetrically c-commands A, B,
C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J, since none of these c-command N.
Now that we have established the basic Xavor of the c-command
relation, let us consider the proper formalization of this conWguration.
Reinhart’s original deWnition is given in (20):7
7 Chomsky’s (1981: 166) actual formulation is:
A c-commands B if
(i) A does not contain B;
(ii) Suppose that s
1
,..., s
n
is the maximal sequence such that
(a) s
n
¼ A;
(b) s
i
¼ A
j
;
(c) s

i
immediately dominates s
iþ1
.
Then if C dominates A, then either (I) C dominates B, or (II) C ¼ s
i
and s
1
dominates B.
52 preliminaries
(20) Node A c-commands node B if neither A nor B dominates the
other and the Wrst branching node dominating A dominates
B. (Reinhart 1976: 32)
There are a couple things to note about this deWnition. First observe
that it is deWned in terms of (reXexive) domination. It should be
obvious that non-reXexive proper domination is necessary. Consider
again the tree in (19), this time focusing on the node C. If domination
is reXexive, then the Wrst node that dominates C is C itself. This means
that C would not c-command D, G, and H, contrary to what we want;
it would only c-command its own daughters. As such, c-command
needs to be cast as proper domination, so that the Wrst branching node
dominating C is B, which correctly dominates D, G, and H. Following
Richardson and Chametzky (1985) we can amend (20)to(21):
(21) Node Ac-commands node B if neither A nor B dominates the other
and the Wrst branching node properly dominating A dominates B.
Next consider how we formalize the notion of aunt/sisterhood. In
Reinhart’s deWnition the terminology ‘‘Wrst branching node’’ is used.
As Barker and Pullum (1990) note, neither the notions of ‘‘Wrst’’ nor
‘‘branching’’ are properly (or easily) deWned. But let us assume for the
moment that we give these terms their easiest and intended meaning:

‘‘Wrst’’ means nearest in terms of domination relations, ‘‘branching’’
means at least two branches emerge from the node. Somewhat sur-
prisingly, under such a characterization in the following tree, A
c-commands C, D, and E:
S
BC
AD E
Because B does not branch binarily, S is the Wrst branching node domin-
ating A, and S also dominates C. There is at least one theory-internal
reason why we would want to restrict A from c-commanding C. Assume,
following Travis (1984),that head-movement relations(movement from a
head into another head) are subject toa constraint that the moved element
must c-command its trace. If the conWguration described in (19)isa
c-command relation, then verbs, tense, etc., should be able to head-move
into the head of their subject NPs (i.e. A), since this position c-commands
c-command and government 53
the base position of these elements. In order to limit the scope of
c-commanded relations to the more usual notion based on sisterhood
and aunthood, the deWnition in (23) is closer to common current usage:
(23) C-command
Node A c-commands node B if every node properly dominating A
also properly dominates B, and neither A nor B dominate the other.
This deWnition corresponds more closely to our intuitive deWnition
above, and is consistent with (the inverse of) Klima’s (1964) ‘‘in
construction with’’ relation (Barker and Pullum 1990).
There is one additional clause in (23) that we have not yet discussed.
This is the phrase ‘‘and neither A nor B dominate the other.’’ Assume
for the moment that this clause was not part of the deWnition. Even
with the condition that c-command is deWned in terms of proper
domination rather than domination, in (19), C c-commands its own

daughters. The mother of C, B, dominates not only D, G, and H, but
also C, E, F, I, and J, so C c-commands its own daughters. This again
goes against our intuitive aunt/sister understanding of c-command. It
also has negative empirical consequences. Consider the situation where
the antecedent of an NP is inside the NP itself (such as *[
NP
his
i
friend]
i
). Under this deWnition of c-command, [his friend] binds
[his]. There is a circularity here that one wishes to avoid. This kind
of sentence is typically ruled out by a diVerent constraint in Chomsky’s
Government and Binding (GB) framework (the i-within-i condition).
However, we can rule it out independently with the condition ‘‘neither
A nor B dominate the other.’’ This restriction was not originally in
place to limit i-within-i constructions, but to limit the behavior of
government—a structural relation parasitic on c-command (see
below). Nevertheless it also has the desired eVect here.
Notice that although they both seem to restrict the same kind of
behavior (induced by reXexivity), both the proper domination and
‘‘neither A nor B dominate the other’’ restrictions are independently
necessary. The proper dominance restriction is required to ensure that
a node can c-command out of itself (this is true whether the neither/
nor restriction holds or not, since what is at stake here is not a
restriction on what nodes A cannot dominate, but a means of ensuring
that A c-commands more than its own daughters. By contrast, the
neither/nor restriction limits a node from c-commanding the nodes it
dominates, and from c-commanding its own dominators. Put another
way, there are really three distinct entities involved in c-command, the

54 preliminaries