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Persian Learner Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

The head word of a phrase?

Hi.

How should someone realize the head word of a phrase?

The mountain is a mile high.

The rule I consider is that the head word is usually modified by the surrounding words.

In the give sentence above, the adjective high has modified the noun mile, so mile is the head word.

What about the following sentence?

He drank two cups of coffee.

About the underlined phrase, Our teacher said cups is syntactically the head word but coffee is semantically the head word of the phrase. Is he correct? How should really someone find the head word of a phrase?
  

Top answer

Persian Learner In the give sentence above, the adjective high has modified the noun mile I see it the other way round: "a mile" modifies "high" (tells us how high). Persian Learner He drank two cups of coffee. This seems tricky.

— GPY

  • Persian Learner In the give sentence above, the adjective high has modified the noun mile I see it the other way round: "a mile" modifies "high" (tells us how high).
  • Persian Learner He drank two cups of coffee.
  • This seems tricky.
  • I think it depends on how "cups" is interpreted.
  • If it is interpreted as a measure, telling us how much coffee, then the head noun should be "coffee", just as it would be "cloth" in "two yards of cloth".
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3 Answers
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Persian LearnerIn the give sentence above, the adjective high has modified the noun mile
I see it the other way round: "a mile" modifies "high" (tells us how high).
Persian LearnerHe drank two cups of coffee.
This seems tricky. I think it depends on how "cups" is interpreted. If it is interpreted as a measure, telling us how
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Is high a noun or an adjective in the given sentence?
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Persian LearnerIs high a noun or an adjective in the given sentence?
Adjective.
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