A head-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads (or nuclei) of the phrase in question, rather than the modifiers or dependents. In a noun phrase, the head is the main noun and the dependents are the article, the adjectives, the possessives, etc. In a verb phrase the head is the verb and the dependents are its arguments (subject, object, etc.). An example of such language is Nahuatl.
