Dictionary

head-final en · ADJ

Meanings

1. (not-comparable) Having the head (primary morpheme) at the end of a phrase.
   • A fascinating generalization across languages is that if a language has head-initial verb-object word order, then its head-argument word order rules tend to be head-initial, as in English and in lots of other subject-verb-object (SVO) languages such as Mandarin, Spanish, French, or Swahili. But if a language has object-verb word order, then all of its head-argument word order rules tend to be head-final. 2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Dependency Length Minimization as a Constraint on Grammars” (chapter 5), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 140: