Feature percolation

Feature Percolation is a mechanism proposed in Lieber (1980) and Williams (1981a) which copies features of one of the members of a morphological construction (usually features of the head) to the node that immediately dominates both members. As a consequence, a complex form inherits the properties of its head.

Example
the English verb stand is a strong verb, which can be indicated by assigning the diacritic feature [+ablaut] to this verb. The complex verb withstand also is a strong verb. This can be accounted for if one assumes that the feature [+ablaut] will percolate up to the node dominating both with and stand, as illustrated below:

V				     V     / \				    [+abl] /  \			   /     \   P     V   		 	  P	  V with	stand	      =&gt;	with	    stand [+abl]		                   [+abl]

Link
Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics