immediate dominance

A term used in Generative Linguistics for a type of relationship between Nodes in a Phrase-Marker: a node A immediately Dominates a node B if and only if (a) A dominates B, and (b) there is no node C such that it also dominates B and is dominated by A.

An immediate dominance (ID) rule is a type of rule in GENERALIZED PHRASE-STRUCTURE GRAMMAR of the form X ⇒ Y, Z. It specifies that X can dominate Y and Z but does not specify the relative order of Y and Z. Together with LINEAR PRECEDENCE RULES and various general PRINCIPLES, ID rules generate phrase-markers of the classical type.