Heads

Abstract

Recent work on morphology – Lieber, 1981; Williams, 1981; Kiparsky, 1982; and Selkirk, 1982, in particular – has extended the notion of HEAD from syntax into new areas in morphology. In particular, these writers propose that in forms with derivational affixes, like English happiness , the affix is the head of the combination; for instance, Kiparsky assumes (following Lieber) ‘that all word formation is endocentric’, meaning by this ‘that the category of a derived word is always non-distinct from the category of its head, in English usually the rightmost constituent (cf. Williams, 1981)’ (133).