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Most other dependencies in English are, however, head-initial as the tree shows. The mixed nature of head-initial and head-final structures is common across languages. In fact purely head-initial or purely head-final languages probably do not exist, although there are some languages that approach purity in this respect, for instance Japanese.
In linguistics, head directionality is a proposed parameter that classifies languages according to whether they are head-initial (the head of a phrase precedes its complements) or head-final (the head follows its complements).
Whether a language is head-initial or head-final is regarded as a parameter which is either on or off for particular languages (i.e. English is head-initial, whereas Japanese is head-final). Principles and parameters was largely formulated by the linguists Noam Chomsky and Howard Lasnik. Many linguists have worked within this framework, and for ...
The direction of branching reflects the position of heads in phrases, and in this regard, right-branching structures are head-initial, whereas left-branching structures are head-final. [2] English has both right-branching (head-initial) and left-branching (head-final) structures, although it is more right-branching than left-branching. [3]
Prepositional and postpositional phrases differ by the order of the words used. Languages that are primarily head-initial such as English predominantly use prepositional phrases whereas head-final languages predominantly employ postpositional phrases. Many languages have both types, as well as circumpositional phrases.
Head-initial languages will have the head precede the complement, like in English. Head-final languages, like Japanese and Korean, have the head following the complement. In this way, X-bar theory allows for variation across languages with some having an SOV (subject, object, verb) order while others have an SVO order. [ 3 ]
Whether a language has primarily prepositions or postpositions is seen as an aspect of its typological classification, and tends to correlate with other properties related to head directionality. Since an adposition is regarded as the head of its phrase, prepositional phrases are head-initial (or right- branching ), while postpositional phrases ...
Example (2)in English "eat an apple", [VP [V eat][DP an apple]] is used in Fukui's article to contrast with Japanese as an example of head initial vs. head final languages. It is actually the same in English as in German in this simple VP phrase with one verb part: [ VP [esse][DP einen Apfel]] so that it does not show by itself that German is a ...