Government

Government is a structural relation between a governor (a head or maximal projection) and a governee. Government is usually considered to be a necessary condition for case-marking and for proper government (see ECP). A range of near-identical definitions have been proposed, with slightly different empirical predictions in these and other areas. (i) is a typical example of such a definition.

(i) alpha governs beta iff alpha c-commands beta and there is no barrier for beta that excludes alpha

The core case of government is the relation between a head and its complement; this case is captured by every existing definition. Thus, in (ii),

(ii)	XP | 	X' | \ 	X YP  	  / | ZP Y'             | \ Y WP 	      / | UP	W' | 		W

X governs its complement YP, hence can case-mark it (if X is a case-assigning head) and properly govern it (if X is a lexical head). Depending on the definition of barrier, X may or may not govern ZP (with possible consequences for the treatment of Exceptional Case Marking). The definition of government will usually exclude X governing UP (allowing UP to be an (ungoverned) PRO subject), but sometimes allows ZP to govern UP (allowing ZP to properly govern UP, if they are coindexed). The c-command (sometimes m-command) clause prevents W from governing ZP, with consequences for the proper government of subjects.

Link
Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics