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In linguistics, the head is the morpheme that determines the category of a compound or the word that determines the syntactic type of the phrase of which it is a member.

In the noun phrase big red dog, for instance, dog is the head, which is modified by the adjectives big and red. Likewise, in the compound noun greensleeves, sleeves is the head, which is modified by the adjective green.

Some language typologists attempt to classify language syntax according to a head directionality parameter in word order, that is, whether a phrase is head initial or head final, assuming that it has a fixed word order at all. It is also common to classify language morphology according to whether a phrase is head marking or dependent marking.

However, these simple dichotomies run into problems when they are extended, as they often are, to describe the entire language rather than specific areas of its grammar. For one, many languages are not consistently either head initial or final, or head or dependent marking, across different aspects of their grammar; and secondly, it is difficult find a definition of 'head' that is consistent across these different aspects. For instance, either the subject or the verb may be considered the 'head' of the clause in different theoretical treatments, resulting in alleged descriptions of languages as 'head initial' or 'head marking' that are theoretical claims rather than actual descriptions.

In a prosodic unit, the head is that part which extends from the first stressed syllable up to (but not including) the tonic syllable. The high head is the stressed syllable which begins the head and is high in pitch, usually higher than the beginning pitch of the tone on the tonic syllable. For example:

The ˈbus was late.

The low head is the syllable which begins the head and is low in pitch, usually lower than the beginning pitch of the tone on the tonic syllable.

The ˌbus was late.

• Corbett, G. G., N. M. Fraser, and S. McGlashan (eds). 1993. Heads in Grammatical Theory. Cambridge University Press.
• Hudson, R. A. 1987. "Zwicky on heads". Journal of Linguistics 23, pp. 109–132.
• Zwicky, A. M. 1993. "Heads, bases and functors". In G. G. Corbett, et al (eds) 1993, pp. 292–315.
• Zwicky, A. M. 1985. "Heads". Journal of Linguistics 21, pp. 1–29.

• Head-driven phrase structure grammar
• Head directionality parameter
• Head-marking language

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