X. Variable, in *X-bar syntax, ranging over N, V, and other syntactic categories.

X-bar syntax. Model of *phrase structure grammar developed largely by R. S. Jackendoff in the 1970s
and incorporated into *government and Binding Theory in the 1980s.
Essentially a theory of syntactic categories, according to which, for any categories X, there is a fixed
hierarchy of units. In the original notation these were distinguished by successive levels of barring: thus,
in the illustration , X = N (for noun); the noun itself is labelled as an N with no bar, and the units
labelled with one bar (-) and with two bars (-) are successive phrases of which it is the *head (1). Comp
(for complement) is a cover term for anything that combines with an X to form an -; spec (for
specifier) a similar term for anything that combines with an - to form an -.
In later usage - is increasingly written - or XP; in term of Government and Binding Theory this is the
*maximal projection of the category. - is correspondingly written -. In a standard account the values of X
include the major syntactic categories N (noun), V (verb), A (adjective), and P (preposition), with the
maximal projection of a verb (- or VP) often seen as including a subject noun phrase as its specifier. The
system was extended in a Government and Binding Theory to include non-lexical categories such as C
(*COMP) or I (*INFL); it was also abstracted, as a theory of categories hypothetically forming part of
*universal grammar (2), from parameters (e.g. a proposed *Head parameter) distinguishing the orders in
which they are realized in particular languages.

Xhosa. *Bantu language, spoken in Cape Province and Transkei (South Africa) and distinguished by
political divisions, within a group called *Nguni, from zulu. The name is pronounced in English with
initial [k].
x-question. Proposed as an alternative to wh-question or *wh-interrogative. Cf. focused interrogative.