ABSTRACT

Relation described by Langacker (1966) between nodes in a tree diagram: two nodes A and B are in a relation of primacy, if (a) in the linear chain node A precedes node B and (b) node A commands node B, i.e. neither A nor B dominate each other, and the S-node which immediately dominates node A also dominates the node B. See the following tree diagram, in which node A precedes node B (precedence relation) and node A commands the nodes X and B:

The primacy relation plays an important part in transformation processes such as pronominalization (see Langacker), but also generally in constraints for the application of rules (Reis 1974).