A head word grammar

In English grammar, a head is the key word that determines the nature of a phrase (in contrast to any modifiers or determiners).

For example, in a noun phrase, the head is a noun or pronoun («a tiny sandwich«). In an adjective phrase, the head is an adjective («completely inadequate«). In an adverb phrase, the head is an adverb («quite clearly«).

A head is sometimes called a headword, though this term shouldn’t be confused with the more common use of headword to mean a word placed at the beginning of an entry in a glossary, dictionary, or other reference work.

Also Known As

head word (HW), governor

Examples and Observations

• «Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.»_{(Humphrey Bogart as Rick in Casablanca, 1942)}
• «As the leader of all illegal activities in Casablanca, I am an influential and respected man.»_{(Sydney Greenstreet as Senor Ferrari in Casablanca, 1942)}
• «The head of the noun phrase a big man is man, and it is the singular form of this item which relates to the co-occurrence of singular verb forms, such as is, walks, etc.; the head of the verb phrase has put is put, and it is this verb which accounts for the use of object and adverbial later in the sentence (e.g. put it there). In phrases such as men and women, either item could be the head.»_{(David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Wiley-Blackwell, 2003)}

Testing for Heads

«Noun phrases must contain a head. Most frequently this will be a noun or pronoun, but occasionally it can be an adjective or determiner. The heads of noun phrases can be identified by three tests:

1. They cannot be deleted.

2. They can usually be replaced by a pronoun.

3. They can usually be made plural or singular (this may not be possible with proper names).

Only test 1 holds good for all heads: the results for 2 and 3 depend on the type of head.» _{(Jonathan Hope, Shakespeare’s Grammar. Bloomsbury, 2003)}

Determiners as Heads

«Determiners may be used as heads, as in the following examples:

Some arrived this morning.

I have never seen many.

He gave us two

Like third person pronouns these force us to refer back in the context to see what is being referred to. Some arrived this morning makes us ask ‘Some what?’, just as He arrived this morning makes us ask ‘Who did?’ But there is a difference. He stands in place of a whole noun phrase (e.g. the minister) while some is part of a noun phrase doing duty for the whole (e.g. some applications). . . .

«Most determiners occurring as heads are back-referring [that is, anaphoric]. The examples given above amply illustrate this point. However, they are not all so. This is especially the case with this, that, these, and those. For instance, the sentence Have you seen these before? could be spoken while the speaker is pointing to some newly built houses. He is then not referring ‘back’ to something mentioned, but referring ‘out’ to something outside the text [that is, exophora].»

_{(David J. Young, Introducing English Grammar. Taylor & Francis, 2003)} 

Narrower and Wider Definitions

«There are two main definitions [of head], one narrower and due largely to Bloomfield, the other wider and now more usual, following work by R.S. Jackendoff in the 1970s.

1. In the narrower definition, a phrase p has a head h if h alone can bear any syntactic function that p can bear. E.g. very cold can be replaced by cold in any construction: very cold water or cold water, I feel very cold or I feel cold. Therefore the adjective is its head and, by that token, the whole is an ‘adjective phrase.’

2. In the wider definition, a phrase p has a head h if the presence of h determines the range of syntactic functions that p can bear. E.g. the constructions into which on the table can enter are determined by the presence of a preposition, on. Therefore the preposition is its head and, by that token, it is a ‘prepositional phrase.'»

head (noun) head (verb) headed (adjective) head–hunting (noun)

Is head a noun or adjective?

In a noun phrase, the head is a noun, and there may be pre-head and post-head items, also called premodifiers and postmodifiers. In a verb phrase, the head is a verb.

What word is head?

noun. the upper or front part of the body in vertebrates, including man, that contains and protects the brain, eyes, mouth, and nose and ears when presentRelated adjective: cephalic. the corresponding part of an invertebrate animal. something resembling a head in form or function, such as the top of a tool.

What is a head in grammar?

Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms In English grammar, a head is the key word that determines the nature of a phrase (in contrast to any modifiers or determiners). For example, in a noun phrase, the head is a noun or pronoun (“a tiny sandwich”).

What is a head Word example?

The headword (or head) in a phrase is that word which is essential to the core meaning of the phrase. It is the word to which the phrase is reducible, for example: This environmentally-friendly car has been using additive-free petrol. CAR USES PETROL.

Can there be two heads in a noun phrase?

Noun phrase heads are words that function as the heads of noun phrases. A noun phrase consists of a noun or pronoun plus any determiners, modifiers, and complements. Only two grammatical forms can perform the function of noun phrase head in the English language.

What is mean by head noun?

In linguistics, the head or nucleus of a phrase is the word that determines the syntactic category of that phrase. For example, the head of the noun phrase boiling hot water is the noun water. For example, the head of the compound noun handbag is bag, since a handbag is a bag, not a hand.

Can a head noun be more than one word?

A noun phrase may consist of more than one word. One of these words, a noun or a pronoun, is the headword. The other words describe or modify the headword. Words that go before the headword are called premodifiers.

What is a compound word for head?

‘Headache’ is a compound word formed by ‘head’ and ‘ache’.

What is the compound word of cross?

8-letter words that start with cross. crossing. crossbar. crossbow. crosscut.

What’s the meaning of CIA?

Central Intelligence Agency

What type of word is CIA?

CIA is an abbreviation for ‘Central Intelligence Agency. ‘

What does CIA mean in texting?

What does Fyp mean?

For You

How does one become a CIA agent?

How to become a CIA agent

1. Earn a bachelor’s degree.
2. Consider earning a master’s degree.
3. Become fluent in one or two foreign languages.
4. Gain relevant experience.
5. Complete the required testing and medical examinations.
6. Finish an internal training program.

What does Dia stand for?

Defense Intelligence Agency

Does Dia mean God?

Dia (Ancient Greek: Δία or Δῖα, “heavenly”, “divine” or “she who belongs to Zeus”), in ancient Greek religion and folklore, may refer to: Dia, a goddess venerated at Phlius and Sicyon. She was seen by the locals as identical to Hebe and/or Ganymeda.

What does Dia mean in texting?

Democracy in America

Who does DIA report to?

What is the purpose of the DIA?

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is a Department of Defense (DOD) combat support agency. We produce, analyze, and disseminate military intelligence information to combat and non-combat military missions.

Is NSA part of DOD?

Founded in 1952, NSA is part of the Department of Defense and a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The Agency supports military customers, national policymakers, and the counterterrorism and counterintelligence communities, as well as key international allies.

Which is bigger NSA or CIA?

Since then, it has become the largest of the U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget. Unlike the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage, the NSA does not publicly conduct human-source intelligence gathering.

Does NSA spy on us?

U.S. U.S. PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies.

What pays more FBI or CIA?

Salaries. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has 583 more total submitted salaries than CIA.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In linguistics, the head or nucleus of a phrase is the word that determines the syntactic category of that phrase. For example, the head of the noun phrase boiling hot water is the noun (head noun) water. Analogously, the head of a compound is the stem that determines the semantic category of that compound. For example, the head of the compound noun handbag is bag, since a handbag is a bag, not a hand. The other elements of the phrase or compound modify the head, and are therefore the head’s dependents.^[1] Headed phrases and compounds are called endocentric, whereas exocentric («headless») phrases and compounds (if they exist) lack a clear head. Heads are crucial to establishing the direction of branching. Head-initial phrases are right-branching, head-final phrases are left-branching, and head-medial phrases combine left- and right-branching.

Basic examples[edit]

Examine the following expressions:

big red dog

birdsong

The word dog is the head of big red dog since it determines that the phrase is a noun phrase, not an adjective phrase. Because the adjectives big and red modify this head noun, they are its dependents.^[2] Similarly, in the compound noun birdsong, the stem song is the head since it determines the basic meaning of the compound. The stem bird modifies this meaning and is therefore dependent on song. Birdsong is a kind of song, not a kind of bird. Conversely, a songbird is a type of bird since the stem bird is the head in this compound. The heads of phrases can often be identified by way of constituency tests. For instance, substituting a single word in place of the phrase big red dog requires the substitute to be a noun (or pronoun), not an adjective.

Representing heads[edit]

Trees[edit]

Many theories of syntax represent heads by means of tree structures. These trees tend to be organized in terms of one of two relations: either in terms of the constituency relation of phrase structure grammars or the dependency relation of dependency grammars. Both relations are illustrated with the following trees:^[3]

The constituency relation is shown on the left and the dependency relation on the right. The a-trees identify heads by way of category labels, whereas the b-trees use the words themselves as the labels.^[4] The noun stories (N) is the head over the adjective funny (A). In the constituency trees on the left, the noun projects its category status up to the mother node, so that the entire phrase is identified as a noun phrase (NP). In the dependency trees on the right, the noun projects only a single node, whereby this node dominates the one node that the adjective projects, a situation that also identifies the entirety as an NP. The constituency trees are structurally the same as their dependency counterparts, the only difference being that a different convention is used for marking heads and dependents. The conventions illustrated with these trees are just a couple of the various tools that grammarians employ to identify heads and dependents. While other conventions abound, they are usually similar to the ones illustrated here.

More trees[edit]

The four trees above show a head-final structure. The following trees illustrate head-final structures further as well as head-initial and head-medial structures. The constituency trees (= a-trees) appear on the left, and dependency trees (= b-trees) on the right. Henceforth the convention is employed where the words appear as the labels on the nodes. The next four trees are additional examples of head-final phrases:

The following six trees illustrate head-initial phrases:

And the following six trees are examples of head-medial phrases:

The head-medial constituency trees here assume a more traditional n-ary branching analysis. Since some prominent phrase structure grammars (e.g. most work in Government and binding theory and the Minimalist Program) take all branching to be binary, these head-medial a-trees may be controversial.

X-bar trees[edit]

Trees that are based on the X-bar schema also acknowledge head-initial, head-final, and head-medial phrases, although the depiction of heads is less direct. The standard X-bar schema for English is as follows:

This structure is both head-initial and head-final, which makes it head-medial in a sense. It is head-initial insofar as the head X⁰ precedes its complement, but it is head-final insofar as the projection X’ of the head follows its specifier.

Head-initial vs. head-final languages[edit]

Some language typologists classify language syntax according to a head directionality parameter in word order, that is, whether a phrase is head-initial (= right-branching) or head-final (= left-branching), assuming that it has a fixed word order at all. English is more head-initial than head-final, as illustrated with the following dependency tree of the first sentence of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis:

The tree shows the extent to which English is primarily a head-initial language. Structure is descending as speech and processing move from left to right. Most dependencies have the head preceding its dependent(s), although there are also head-final dependencies in the tree. For instance, the determiner-noun and adjective-noun dependencies are head-final as well as the subject-verb dependencies. Most other dependencies in English are, however, head-initial as the tree shows. The mixed nature of head-initial and head-final structures is common across languages. In fact purely head-initial or purely head-final languages probably do not exist, although there are some languages that approach purity in this respect, for instance Japanese.

The following tree is of the same sentence from Kafka’s story. The glossing conventions are those established by Lehmann. One can easily see the extent to which Japanese is head-final:

A large majority of head-dependent orderings in Japanese are head-final. This fact is obvious in this tree, since structure is strongly ascending as speech and processing move from left to right. Thus the word order of Japanese is in a sense the opposite of English.

Head-marking vs. dependent-marking[edit]

It is also common to classify language morphology according to whether a phrase is head-marking or dependent-marking. A given dependency is head-marking, if something about the dependent influences the form of the head, and a given dependency is dependent-marking, if something about the head influences the form of the dependent.

For instance, in the English possessive case, possessive marking (‘s) appears on the dependent (the possessor), whereas in Hungarian possessive marking appears on the head noun:^[5]

Prosodic head[edit]

In a prosodic unit, the head is the part that extends from the first stressed syllable up to (but not including) the tonic syllable. A high head is the stressed syllable that begins the head and is high in pitch, usually higher than the beginning pitch of the tone on the tonic syllable. For example:

The ^↑bus was late.

A low head is the syllable that begins the head and is low in pitch, usually lower than the beginning pitch of the tone on the tonic syllable.

The ^↓bus was late.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]