Head (linguistics)

About: Head (linguistics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2540 publications have been published within this topic receiving 29023 citations. The topic is also known as: nucleus.

Developing Noun Phrase Complexity at School Age: A Text-Embedded Cross-Linguistic Analysis

Abstract: Development of noun phrase structure and use is analyzed as an important facet of syntactic acquisition from middle childhood to adolescence. Noun phrases occurring in narrative and expository texts produced in both speech and writing by 96 native speakers of English and Hebrew were identified and examined by a set of specially devised criteria including length in words, syntactic depth, abstractness of head nouns, and nature of modifiers. Results reveal a clear and consistent developmental increment in NP complexity from age 9 to 12, and particularly from age 16 years; written expository texts emerge as a favored site for use of syntactically complex constructions; and nominal elements play a more central role in the discursive syntax of Hebrew than English. Findings are discussed in terms of the interplay between psycholinguistic factors of cognitive processing constraints and the impact of increased literacy in later language development.

The syntax of yes and no in Finnish

Abstract: In Finnish a yes/no-question is normally answered by repeating the finite verb or auxiliary, optionally followed by a string of nonfinite verbs and certain adverbs. The claim is that these yes/no replies (YNRs) are derived by two movements: (1) movement of vP or a larger verb projection containing the subject to the spec of a Topic phrase, where it is either spelled out phonologically, or spelled out as null, resulting in ellipsis; (2) movement of the remnant Polarity phrase to the spec of a higher Focus phrase, where it is spelled out phonologically. This accounts for the syntactic as well as the semantic and distributional properties of YNRs. For example, it accounts for why they have no visible subject, although Finnish does not otherwise allow null subjects in the 3 rd person. There is another form of YNR constructed with the subject. These are derived by vP-ellipsis and head movement of Pol to Focus.

The X-bar theory of phrase structure

Abstract: X-bar theory is widely regarded as a substantive theory of phrase structure properties in natural languages. In this paper we will demonstrate that a formalization of its content reveals very little substance in its claims. We state and discuss six conditions that encapsulate the claims of X-bar theory: LEXICALITY—each nonterminal is a projection of a preterminal; SUCCESSION—each X n + 1 dominates an X n for all n ≥ 0; UNIFORMITY—all maximal projections have the same bar-level; MAXIMALITY—all nonheads are maximal projections; CENTRALITY—the start symbol is a maximal projection; and OPTIONALITY—all and only nonheads are optional. We then consider recent proposals to 'eliminate' base components from transformational grammars and to reinterpret X-bar theory as a set of universal constraints holding for all languages at D-structure, arguing that this strategy fails. We show that, as constraints on phrase-structure rule systems, the X-bar conditions have hardly any effect on the descriptive power of grammars, and that the principles with the most chance of making some descriptive difference are the least adhered to in practice. Finally, we reconstruct X-bar theory in a way that makes no reference to the notion of bar-level but instead makes the notion 'head of the central one.

COMP, INFL, and Germanic Word Order

Abstract: The aim of this article is to describe and account for the major word order differences among the Germanic languages1 The main thesis of the article is that the different placements of the finite verb and related phenomena in these languages can be ascribed to a small set of grammatical differences, mainly involving different distributions of the properties assigned to COMP and INFL Specifically, I will argue that S is a headed category, and that the choice of head of S is a parameter, the value of which singles out English from the other Germanic languages

Functional structure in DP and IP

Abstract: This edited volume presents the first results of a long term research project, funded by the Italian Government, which aims at mapping out the fine functional structure of sentences, nominal phrases, and other major phrases making up sentences. Structural representations are seen to arise from the combinations of two kinds syntactic atoms: lexical elements (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and functional elements (determiners, complementizers and various kinds of inflections), the first expressing the descriptive content, the second providing the functional architecture of syntactic structures. This study focuses on the latter, exploring in particular the functional structure of dps (determiner phrases, noun phrases having a determiner as its head: thus, the old man would be a determiner phrase headed by the, headed in turn by man, as its dependent) and ips(inflection phrases, another syntactic category to describe clauses without complement clauses: e.g. she married him would be an ip without the complementizer since). These papers also examine the functional structure of sentences in both verbal and signed languages, uncovering a rich hierarchy of functional projections hosting different classes a adjectival phrases. one of the major collective research projects that has emerged from contemporary research in generative grammar, this volume is highly rigorous empirically and theoretically and provides linguists with a very important body of analysis that is likely to influence future research.