_{Syntactic Theory}

The Head

Properties of the head:

• syntax: the syntactic category of the head determines the category of the phrase
• morphology: morphological marking of the entire constituent is often realized at the head (finiteness, tense, agreement, case, number, gender, ...)
• semantics: the head determines the 'kind' of objects described.

Examples:

• clause (S):
  In HPSG the sentence is a projection of the verb. Consequently the VP that is the sister of the subject is the head of the local tree dominated by S.
• clause (S'), also called CP:
  An S' is introduced by a complementizer or a subordinate conjunction. In many syntactic theories this function word is consider the head of S'. (This is true for both GB and HPSG as presented in this ELLO module.)
• For the VP, NP, PP, AP, and AdvP the highest verb, noun, preposition, adjective or adverb of the respective phrase is the head.
• In the case of non-branching trees the single daughter is considered the head.

We have marked the head in the following tree diagram:

Related pages:

• other grammatical functions: complement, modifier, specifier
• in the clause: predicate

Categories: Glossary