n. in generative grammar, a process in which certain grammatical rules can be repeatedly applied, with the output of each application being input to the next, in principle indefinitely. An example is the rule S→S and S, where S denotes a sentence; the rule is recursive because it can be used to generate a potentially infinite string of sentences conjoined by and. A well-known example of recursion is the nursery rhyme “The House that Jack Built” (This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt…). —recursiveadj.