The Notion of Headedness in

Morphology
by

Barbara Majireck

Paper submitted in partial fulfilment of the

requirements for a graded credit for the course
PS Morphology
in Winter Term 2005 - 2006
Submission Date: 31 March 2006
Approved by: Jrgen Handke
Philipps University Marburg

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

Contents
1

An Introduction to the Notion of Headedness ..............................................3

1.1

A Definition of a Head ......................................................................................3

1.2

Syntax and Headedness .....................................................................................3

1.3

Morphology and Headedness ............................................................................5

Compounding and Headedness ......................................................................7

2.1

The Notion of Compounding.............................................................................7

2.2

Difficulties in Compounding Concerning the Head .......................................... 9

2.3

The Classification of Compounds ...................................................................10

Headedness and Compound Types .............................................................. 11

3.1

Headed Compounds.........................................................................................11

3.2

Headless Compounds ......................................................................................12

3.3

Neoclassical Compounds.................................................................................14

Conclusion ......................................................................................................15

References ......................................................................................................16

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

An Introduction to the Notion of

Headedness

In this paper, the notion of headedness will be discussed in terms of its function in
morphology and its origin in syntactic structures. In order to reach this analysis, this
paper will begin by providing a brief definition of the head along with an analysis
of the concepts attached to it in syntax and morphology and will continue on with a
glance into its importance in compounding. Finally, the classification, types of
compounds along with detailed examples will be examined in order to receive
further insight into the concept surrounding headedness in morphology and how it
manifests itself in the context of words.

1.1

A Definition of a Head

A head, according to Katamba (1993:332), is an element of a construction that is

essential for the whole of that construction and is an element on which the
remaining elements rely. What this element head really is and what its function is
in syntactic and morphological structures will be apparent in the following sections
of this paper.

1.2

Syntax and Headedness

In order to fully understand the notion of headedness, one must begin with this
notion as it refers to syntactic theory. A syntactic model of generative grammar that
can shed light on the notion of a head is termed X-bar syntax. X-bar syntax is
defined as detailing the restrictions on the rules governing phrase structure in a
languages grammar (Bauer 1983:145). Thus, the head has something to do with the
structure of a phrase and how the elements relate to each other in this phrasal
hierarchy.
X-bar syntax claims that all languages have a similar phrase structure when
it comes to the X-bar. The X stands for a lexical category ([INT 1]). The

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

lexical category can be a verb (V), noun (N), adjective (A), preposition (P) or even
an adverb (ADV) (Aarts 2001:106, Katamba 1993:303). The bar in this sense
refers to the level notation, which represents the hierarchy of the phrase structure
(Katamba 1993:303, Lieber 1992:27). As a generalization, the phrase structure can
be illustrated as follows:
(1)

XP (maximal projection)

Specifier X
X (head) ZP (complement)

([INT2])

This structure becomes clearer when inserting actual phrases. For example,
(2)

NP

VP

Specifier N
AP

Specifier

Det

NP

the big

dog

walk

Specifier

Det

the

dog

These examples illustrate what is termed the Head Principle. The Head
Principle states that every phrasal category has a head and that this head and the
other elements in the phrase share the same properties ([INT2]). This description of
the relationship between the head and the other elements of a phrase is also called
feature percolation. While X-bar syntax sets up the position of the head in phrases,
feature percolation helps the head to label the categories in a phrase structure
(Lieber 1992:77). In other words, feature percolation states that the head is the
central element of a phrase (Aarts 2001:31) and passes on its features that are
inherited by the remaining elements in a phrase ([INT3]). Therefore, complete
agreement must take place between the head and the whole of the phrase (Di
Sciullo and Williams 1987:23). Firstly, the head of a noun phrase (NP) must be a
noun, the head of a verb phrase (VP) must be a verb and so on, i.e. they share the

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

same features (Katamba 1993:304). Secondly, a head and the other elements must
also grammatically correspond, i.e. they must correspond in number and case, as is
true of a NP, or in finiteness or tense, as is true of a VP ([INT4]). Examples are:
(3)

The big dog barks

but not

* The big dog bark.

A new dress.

but not

*A new dresses

These examples show that in terms of headedness in syntax, the most important
conclusion to glean from X-bar syntax is that the head exercises feature percolation
in a phrase, meaning it is the determining factor in creating syntactic structures.

1.3

Morphology and Headedness

The notion of headedness in morphology is similar to the syntactic notion outlined

above. Thus, in morphology the head also practices feature percolation and
determines the properties of the elements in relation to it. While syntax takes place
on a phrase and sentence level, morphological theory concerning headedness
involves the word level in turn. Nevertheless, another crucial difference is present.
In syntax, the head is identified by its position in the phrase. When
considering the Right-hand Head Rule, which states that the element to the very
right is the determining factor in a phrase or even word, then when it comes to
headedness

in

morphology,

this

seems

identical

(Borer

1998:160-161).

Additionally, while syntax and morphology share the feature that heads determine
the properties of the whole, syntax relies on the structure of its bar levels. In
morphology, identifying the head is not possible in this manner, because the
elements of a word, specifically a compound, are not necessarily distinct from each
other (Di Sciullo and Williams 1987:23). Consider the following example:
(4) lighthouse- N
N
light

N
house

(Di Sciullo and Williams 1987:24)

This is where the Right-hand Head Rule comes into play. In (4) the elements are on
the same level, which makes it impossible to identify the head in this way. This

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

leads then to the conclusion that the head in morphology must be identified in its
context (Di Sciullo and Williams 1987:24).
Evidence for this contextual identification of a head in morphology is found
in the plural formation of (4). The plural form of lighthouse is lighthouses. This is
evidence that house is the head of this compound, because it determines the
grammatical plural form. If light were acting as the head, the plural form would be
* lightshouse, which is obviously incorrect.
A second piece of evidence for the Right-hand Head Rule and contextual
determination of the head in morphology is apparent in the next example:
(5) bluegrass- He misses the bluegrass of Kentucky.
In this case, bluegrass is indeed a noun, as is the head grass determines. It creates
syntactical structures as a noun, for instance as the object in a VP, as seen above,
and can also head a NP, as in the bluegrass itself.
It seems then that the rightmost element is the clear head in morphological
constructions. However, this is not always the case and the evidence for this
exception will be discussed later on in this paper.
Feature percolation of the head, nevertheless, finds its place in a central
theme of morphology, namely word formation. The following section deals with
word formation and, therefore, discusses more in-dept the concept of headedness in
morphology.

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

Compounding and Headedness

The speakers of a particular language use certain processes of word building, either
in a grammatical sense or for creating new lexemes. These word-building processes
can be summed up by two distinct categories: inflection and derivation (Katamba
1994:58). For the purposes of this paper, inflection is not terribly interesting since it
involves securing the correct grammatical form of a word in context (Bauer
1983:10). Derivation, however, is the process by which speakers of a language
create new lexically significant terms by utilizing the morphemes and established
words already existing in their language. Derivation involves three separate aspects,
namely affixation, conversion and compounding (Katamba 1994:59).
Compounding is of particular interest concerning the notion of headedness
because it involves the formation of words when two or more bases, lexemes or
words to some extent are combined for one lexeme. Compounding in general, as is
the case of other word-building processes, is most commonly used to expand the
vocabulary of a language (Sadock 1998:168). Therefore, for the purposes of this
paper, one can view word formation as the process that produces complex (or here
compound) word forms due to derivation and also discuss the various types of
compounds that exist.

2.1

The Notion of Compounding

Compounding is viewed by Plag ([INT5]) as the type of word formation that is the
most productive in the English language. This makes compounding of special
importance for the notion of headedness in morphology.
As defined above, compounding involves the combination of two or more
lexemes to create a new word or lexeme. Compounding relates to the notion of
headedness, because in the case of most compounds, one can refer to the modifierhead structure ([INT5]). The modifier-head structure goes back to the feature
percolation of the head and to the Right-hand Head Rule. In most instances, the

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

elements on the left side of a compound are merely modifiers of the elements on the
right, which act as the head and, thus, the determining factor of the compound
([INT5]). Plag also refers to the semantic information that the head passes on to the
left-hand element of a compound. This means that in a compound like book club
one does not refer to a type of book, but instead this term denotes a type of club that
is dealing in some way with books. Katamba (1994:73) sums this up by
maintaining that the most crucial property of most compounds is that they are
headed and that one of the words in these compounds is not only dominant in a
syntactic sense, but that this one word also functions as the semantic head for the
entire compound.
In order to illustrate this concept, it is necessary to consider the internal
structure of some examples of compounds, including the one mentioned above:
(5) a) book club [[book]N [club]N] N
b) blue jeans [[blue]A [jeans]N] N
c) black belt [[black]A [belt]N] N
The examples above display an internal structure that is typical of most English
compounds. The most common types of compounds in the English language are
indeed nouns (Katamba 1994:72). However, other types, like good-looking, which
is an adjectival compound, do exist (Katamba 1994:73). Nevertheless, these noun
compounds illustrate the properties and internal structure pertaining to most English
compounds on the one hand.
On the other hand, there is a decisive difference between b) and c) and a).
While a) already consists of two nouns, b) and c) consist of an adjective and a noun.
Yet, the overriding form of the compound as a whole remains a noun, despite the
adjectival elements. This is evidence of the above-mentioned heads in compounds.
blue jeans and black belt both refer to pieces of clothing themselves and not the
description of these clothes, which would be the job of an adjectival compound,
like as in stone-washed blue jeans.
Nevertheless, a compound, like black belt, can be deceptive. It does indeed
refer to a belt that is black, but it may also have another semantic use. This leads
into an inconsistency at the semantic level when it comes to heads in compounding
and other difficulties when discussing headedness in compounding.

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

2.2

Difficulties in Compounding Concerning the Head

While black belt appears to have a clear definition, this compound can also be used
in another context. For example, we can use the term black belt to denote an actual
person:
(6) He is a black belt in karate.
In this context, it is apparent that we are referring to a person and not an accessory
to wear. In this case, it would mean that black belt for this specific use does not
have the semantic head, which is common of most compounds. Katamba (1994:73)
uses the example red tape. In this instance, red tape may refer to a type of tape of
that color used for official documents, but this is not the usual meaning when it is
used in modern English. The more common use of red tape is to refer to an overly
bureaucratic behaviour that is interruptive when it comes to official actions or
decisions. This is one specific difficulty that arises when considering headedness in
compounding.
Another difficulty that arises concerns the identification of compounds. In
English, one often finds inconsistencies in spelling concerning one word, two word
and hyphenated compounds, which make it difficult to recognize a compound
construction (Katamba 1993:293-294). Examples can be seen in the following and
are often found particularly in the difference of hyphenation between British and
American English:
(7) a) straightforward
b) straight forward
c) straight-forward
Here it is difficult to identify the head due to the orthographic representations.
Katamba (1993:294) suggests using accent subordination instead to indicate
compounds and states that one word accent dominates the rest of the compound,
although this is not necessarily true for all compounds.

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

2.3

10

The Classification of Compounds

Due to difficulties in identifying compounds when it comes to their head, it is

necessary to devise a classification system for the compound types that exist in
English. Compounds are usually classified by introducing two criteria. One must
first determine whether the compound has a head or not. When it does, then it must
be decided what the word-class of the head is and what position it is in: on the left
or the right side of the compound (Katamba 1993:304).
It is also important to note that compounds are classified according to the
nature of their semantic heads, since syntactic classification is difficult due to the
fact that English words can belong to more than one word-class, and that
compounds exist involving nominal, verbal and adjectival heads ([INT5]). Here are
some examples: (Katamba 1993:305ff, [INT5])
(8)
Noun

Verb

Adjective

Noun

bookcase

bird watch

world-wide

Verb

pickpocket

stir-fry

Adjective

wet-suit

blindfold

light-green

Preposition

underdog

overrate

overwhelming

_____

Within these examples are compounds with and without heads. The following
section deals with the compound types that arise from this classification.

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

11

Headedness and Compound Types

The previous section contained a chart illustrating examples of nominal, verbal and
adjectival compounds. Within these compounds, there is evidence that compounds
in English and either possess a head or not. This section deals with these two
categories separately.

3.1

Headed Compounds

Compounds that possess a semantic head can be divided up into endocentric

compounds and synthetic compounds.
Endocentric compounds have a semantic head inside the compounds
themselves ([INT5]). Most English compounds fall into this category because the
head is usually on the right and it determines the inflectional properties of the
compound as well as the semantic properties (Katamba 1993:305). Plag ([INT5])
introduces some examples of endocentric compounds:
(9) a) laser printer a type of printer
b) book cover a type of cover for a book
c) letter head the heading of a letter
In a), b) and c), printer, cover and head are clearly the heads of these compounds,
because they have lent the whole their semantic meaning and govern the
grammatical properties. This last function is seen in the plural forms of these
compounds: laser printers, book covers, letter heads, not *lasers printer, *books
cover, *letters head.
However, an exception comes into play here when considering the position
of the head in some endocentric compounds in accordance to the Right-hand Head
Rule. As in the case of the compound passer-by, the head suddenly appears on the
left side as is seen by its plural form passers-by, not *passer-bys (Katamba
1993:3126). Although this example is in the minority, compounds do exist with
left-hand headedness.

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

12

Another type of headed compound involves the synthetic compound. These

compounds have heads similar to those of endocentric compounds, but the
difference lies in the fact that the head is derived from a verb ([INT5]). Some
examples include compounds, like chain smoker and daydreamer (Katamba
1993:309). Plag states that these compounds can be structurally analyzed in two
separate ways: either the suffix is attached to the compound, which is made up of
two words, or the suffix is attached to the word on the right, which then forms the
compound with the non-head element on the left ([INT5]). This can be illustrated as
such:
(10) a) [[chain smoke] er]

or

[chain [smoke-er]

b) [[daydream] er]

or

[day[dream-er]

3.2

Headless Compounds

When considering headless compounds, the concepts of exocentric compounds and

copulative compounds arise.
Exocentric compounds, also termed bahuvrihi, are considered to be headless
because their semantic head lies outside of the compound ([INT5]). This is also due
to a crucial difference between syntax and morphology. While all constructions
generated by X-bar syntax but have a head, compound words in morphology do not
always need to (Katamba 1993:319).
However, as it will become clear with an example, these compounds seem
to indeed possess a head in the grammatical sense and are therefore only
semantically headless in terms of the actual elements in the compound.
Compounds, like redneck, pickpocket, and loudmouth, obtain the part of speech and
inflectional properties from the right-hand element: redneck (N), rednecks (plural
form) not *redsneck. Nevertheless, these compounds do not contain an element that
functions as the absolute semantic head, which should have a modifying function.
In fact, these compounds seem to have a metaphorical meaning. redneck does not
denote a neck that has a reddish color, but instead a person who lives in the country.
pickpocket is not some type of pocket, but a person who steals wallets. loudmouth

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

13

do not describe a type of mouth, but a person who possess a loud mouth. These
compounds are also termed possessive compounds because they tend to
characterize by the property found in the compound ([INT5]). In this way, the
semantic head is not contained within the compound, but is found outside of it.
Another type of headless compound concerns copulative compounds, or
dvandva compounds. These compounds have the following structure (Katamba
1993:431):
(12) a)

girlfriend

N
N

girl

b) bittersweet
N

friend

A
A

bitter

sweet

Again, grammatically speaking these compounds appear to have a right-hand head.

However, considering the semantic level, the elements in these compounds are on
equal ground, meaning that they have equal status in the compound and thus one
cannot dominate the other (Katamba 1993:321).
These compounds, however, can be divided into subcategories in semantic
terms according to Plag ([INT5]). a) exhibits the type of copulative compound
termed appositional compound. In this type, both elements characterize one entity,
i.e. a girlfriend is indeed a girl and to some extent a friend. b) illustrates the other
type of copulative compound called coordinative compound. Here, a particular
relationship is set up, in this case between the opposites bitter and sweet as in bitter
sweet memory (a memory that is both bitter and sweet at the same time).
When considering headless compounds, one must question if the compound
really does contain a head or not. In a grammatical sense it does, but semantically
the head is not present in the classic sense, as in endocentric and synthetic
compounds

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

3.3

14

Neoclassical Compounds
A quick note about neoclassical compounds is also in order when discussing

headedness. In this case, these new compounds are formed with lexemes
originating from Greek or Latin ([INT5]).
Although it may appear that compounds, like biology and geology, are the
products of affixation, they cannot be treated as such. When interpreting these
compounds, one has to consider the origins of these lexemes, for example biomeans life, while logy means the study of. In this case, when considering how
these lexemes were treated in Greek and Latin, it is obvious that these elements
must be viewed as free morphemes in these compounds, although they function as
bound morphemes in English word formation.

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

15

Conclusion

As a summary, the notion of headedness in morphology has its origin in syntactic

theory. There is a distinct similarity to the determining factor of the head in X-bar
syntax and the function of a head in morphology. In both instances, the head
practices feature percolation and dominates the other elements in the respective
constructions.
The semantic function of the head is crucial, however, when it comes to the
function of the head in morphology. This aspect is best illustrated in the examples
of compounding and is highly productive. The general rule concerning
compounding and the head is that there is an overriding tendency for the right-hand
element to dominate the non-head left-hand element in a compound and determines
the inflectional and semantic properties of the compound itself. While there are
exceptions to this rule, most English compounds possess this type of internal
structure.
The types of compounding patterns that exist in English can be broken down
into two categories: headed and headless. Endocentric and synthetic compounds are
headed, while exocentric and copulative compounds are considered headless.
Although this assumption is only true regarding the semantic level in these headless
compounds, due to the existence of a head on the syntactic level.
Finally, the notion of headedness in morphology is crucial in analyzing and
interpreting compounds. Although there may be difficulty in identifying
compounds in some cases, the notion of headedness aids in understanding how
compounds are formed and what rules are set in this morphological process.

The Notion of Headedness in Morphology

16

References

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Hampshire and New York: PALGRAVE.
Bauer, Laurie. 1983. English Word Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Borer, Hagit. 1998. Morphology and Syntax. In Spencer, A. / Zwicky, A. (eds.). The
Handbook of Morphology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. pp. 151-190.
Di Sciullo, Anna-Maria / Williams, Edwin. 1987. On the Definition of Word. Cambridge
and Massachusetts: The MIT Press
Katamba, Francis. 1993. Morphology. London: MacMillan Press.
Lieber, Rochelle. 1992. Deconstructing Morphology: Word Formation in Syntactic
Theory. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Sadock, Jarrold M. 1998. On the Autonomy of Compounding in Morphology. In
Lapointe, S.G. / Brentari, D.K. / Farrell P.M. (eds.). Morphology and Its Relation
to Phonology and Syntax. Standford, California: CSLI Publications. pp. 161-187.

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accessed

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2006.
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