Hovedconstituenter

Hovedconstituenter is a linguistic term used in Danish descriptions of syntax to refer to the heads of syntactic phrases. In most frameworks, a phrase consists of a head and a set of dependents. The head is the central word that determines the phrase's syntactic category (for example noun phrase, verb phrase, or prepositional phrase) and its basic grammatical properties, such as subcategorization and agreement with other elements.

Common heads include nouns in noun phrases (NP), verbs in verb phrases (VP), and prepositions in prepositional phrases (PP). In some analyses, determiners may be treated as the head of a determiner phrase (DP) rather than as a separate dependent.

An example in Danish: en rød bil (“a red car”). The head of this noun phrase is bil (car); en is an indefinite article, and rød is an adjective that modifies the head. In a verb phrase such as spiser musen (“eats the mouse”), spiser is the head and musen is the object noun phrase headed by musen. A prepositional phrase like under bordet (“under the table”) has under as the head.

Head position relative to dependents varies across languages. Some languages place the head before its dependents (head-initial), others place it after (head-final). Danish noun phrases are typically head-final, with the head noun at the end of the phrase, while the exact order of determiners, adjectives, and numerals may vary by dialect and analysis.

Understanding hovedconstituenter helps explain how phrases combine and how agreement and subcategorization patterns are determined in sentences.