A head-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads (or nuclei) of the phrase in question, rather than the modifiers or dependents. In a noun phrase, the head is the main noun and the dependents are the adjectives, the possessives, and the relative clauses. In a verb phrase the head is the verb and the dependents are its arguments (subject, object, etc.). An example of such a language is Nahuatl. The concept was proposed by Johanna Nichols in 1986, and has come to be widely used as a basic category in linguistic typology.
| Phrase type | Head | Dependents | Global distribution map (WALS) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noun phrase | Main noun | adjectives, possessives, relative clause | Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases |
| Verb phrase | Verb | verb arguments | Marking in the Clause |
Languages may be head-marking in verb phrases and dependent-marking in noun phrases—such as most Bantu languages—or vice versa, and it has been argued that the subject rather than the verb is the head of a clause, so "head-marking" is not necessarily a coherent typology. Nonetheless, languages which are head-marking in both noun and verb phrases are common enough to make the term useful for typological description.
Read more about Head-marking Language: Geographical Distribution
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