Syntax: Terms & Concepts
Words

Word: a unit of language consisting of one or more meaningful units (roots, prefixes, suffixes), with a consistent meaning. Words may be simple (containing only a root), complex (comprising a root plus one or more prefixes/suffixes), or compound (containing more than one word). Words serve as building blocks for phrases, the next-larger syntactic unit. Examples are thin, blasphemy, prestidigitation, snowboarding, flea market.

Words serve us as labels for concepts and classes of concepts: 'bird', for example, names a category of animals; 'blue' names a particular range of colors, etc. Any language will have thousands of words, because all human beings have a rich store of concepts, drawn from their daily experience in the world.

Words are building blocks for the next-larger syntactic unit, the phrase. When we put words together, we put their meanings together: 'blue sky' combines the meanings of 'blue' and 'sky'. 'That blue sky' adds the word 'that', which 'points' to a particular blue sky. 'That blue sky' is a phrase.

Words have two roles to play in syntax: head and modifier. A head word is the core of a phrase; it is the word that all other elements in the phrase expand upon. There are many different kinds of modifiers with different functions in different phrase types. Heads are drawn from the classes noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition. Modifiers are drawn from other classes such as determiner, qualifier. Here are some examples:
 
 

(a)	the	girl
	determiner  +	head noun	= Noun Phrase (NP)

 

(b)	very	intelligent
	qualifier  +	head adjective	= Adjective Phrase (AP)

 In English phrases, it is very common  modifiers to occur first, and the head next. Compare the difference in meaning between these two expressions:

1    blue sky
2    sky blue

#1 refers to the sky, a part of the outdoor world, but #2 does not: it refers to a color. 'Sky' is the head of #1, and 'blue' is the head of #2. In #1 'blue' modifies 'sky' — it adds detail to the meaning of the head word 'sky'. In #2, just the opposite is true: 'sky' acts as a modifier to add detail to the meaning of 'blue'. Each expression is more specific — refers to a smaller class of items — than a single word: 'blue sky' is more specific than 'sky' alone; 'sky' blue is more specific than 'blue' alone.

There are instances in which modifiers follow their heads, however:

#1  big enough  ('big' is head; 'enough' gives us the degree of 'bigness')
#2  attorney general (the attorney that serves the general population, not just one town or state)

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