Heads in Grammatical Theory (eds. G.G.Corbett&N.M.Fraser&S.McGlashan).pdf

Contemporary linguistic theories distinguish the principal element of a

phrase — the 'head' — from the subordinate elements it dominates. This

pervasive grammatical concept has been used to describe and account for

linguistic phenomena ranging from agreement and government to word-

order universals, but opinions differ widely on its precise definition. A key

question is whether the head is not already identified by some other, more

basic notion or interacting set of notions in linguistics.

Heads in grammatical theory is the first book devoted to this subject.

Providing a clear view of current research on heads, some of the foremost

linguists in the field tackle the problems set by the assumptions of particular

grammatical theories and offer insights which have relevance across theories.

They consider whether there is a theory-neutral definition of head, whether

heads have cognitive reality, how to identify the head of a phrase, how many

heads a phrase can have, how functional heads behave in head-marking and

dependent-marking languages and whether there are any universal corre-

lations between headedness and deletability.

Heads in grammatical theory