headfinal

Head-final, also written headfinal, is a term in linguistic typology describing the tendency for the head of a syntactic constituent to appear to the right of its dependents. In head-final languages, heads are typically located at the end of the phrase; this pattern is especially evident in noun phrases where modifiers precede the noun head and in clauses where the predicate or verb appears at the end. The arrangement is frequently accompanied by postpositions rather than prepositions and by relative clauses and adjectives that precede the noun head.

Directionality of heads is contrasted with head-initial languages in which the head comes before its dependents and with languages that show mixed or context-dependent orders. This typology stems from Greenberg's universals and is used to describe broad tendencies rather than absolute rules; many languages exhibit variations across syntactic domains, discourse contexts, and history.

Commonly cited examples include Japanese and Korean, which show SOV order and postpositional marking, as well as many noun phrases with the noun head after its modifiers. Turkish is often cited as having strong head-final tendencies in noun phrases and in its overall SOV structure, though it is also known for some constituent-structural variability. The concept remains a simplifying label for a spectrum of related patterns rather than a strict dichotomy.