Heads in Grammatical Theory [Hardcover]

A study of the idea of the 'head' or dominating element of a phrase.This first book-length examination of the concept of the head of a phrase tackles the problems set by the assumptions of particular theories and offers insights which have relevance across theoretical boundaries.This first book-length examination of the concept of the head of a phrase tackles the problems set by the assumptions of particular theories and offers insights which have relevance across theoretical boundaries.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 the 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. Questions considered include whether there is a theory-neutral definition of head, whether heads have cognitive reality, how to identify the head of a phrase, and whether there are any universal correlations between headedness and deletability.List of contributors; 1. Introduction Norman M. Fraser, Greville G. Corbett and Scott McGlashan; 2. The head of Russian numeral expressions Greville G. Corbett; 3. The phonology of heads in Haruai Bernard Comrie; 4. Patterns of headedness Ronnie Cann; 5. Head-hunting on the trail of the nominal Janus Andrew Radford; 6. The headedness of noun-phrases: slaying the nominal hydra John Payne; 7. Head- versus dependent-marking: the case of the clause Nigel Vincent; 8. Hlór