Head (linguistics)
In linguistics, the head of a phrase is the word that determines the syntactic type of that phrase or analogously the stem that determines the semantic category of a compound of which it is a part. The other elements modify the head and are therefore the head's dependents. Headed phrases and compounds are 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.
Read more about Head (linguistics): Basic Examples, Head-initial Vs. Head-final Languages, Head-marking Vs. Dependent-marking, Prosodic Head
Famous quotes containing the word head:
“Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and particle of God.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)