Meanings
- X-bar theorygrammarA phrase, or, equivalently, a node in a syntax tree, which consists either of: (1) an adjunct and another X-bar phrase, (2) a head, X, and an optional complement, or (3) a conjunction sandwiched between two other X-bars. The X is a "pro-letter" which can be substituted by letters such as N for noun, V for verb, P for preposition, I for inflectional, etc.
1 more example
For example, the fact that give must occur as the leftmost constituent of the V-bar containing it follows from two conditions. The first is a putatively universal linearisation (i.e. word-order) principle proposed by Stowell (1981, p. 68) which we might call the PERIPHERY PRINCIPLE: this can be outlined informally as in (33) below: (33) PERIPHERY PRINCIPLE (33) The head term of a Phrase appears at the periphery of X-bar What (33) says is that the Head must be the leftmost or rightmost immediate constituent of X-bar.
1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 7, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 350
Origin
Pronunciation of its text representation: a letter X with overbar (X̄).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
X-bar. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/X-bar
“X-bar.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/X-bar. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “X-bar,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/X-bar.
Source: X-bar on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.