Head (linguistics)

In linguistics, the head is the morpheme that determines the category of a compound or the word that determines the syntactic type of the phrase of which it is a member. In the noun phrase big red dog, for instance, dog is the head, which is modified by the adjectives big and red. Likewise, in the compound noun greensleeves, sleeves is the head, which is modified by the adjective green.In a tone-unit, the head is all that part of a tone-unit that extends from the first stressed syllable up to (but not including) the tonic syllable. The high head is the stressed syllable which begins the head and is high in pitch, usually higher than the beginning pitch of the tone on the tonic syllable. For example: The ˈbus was late.
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