pre-headn.adj.

1958 R. Kingdon Groundwork Eng. Intonation xii. 12 Not all utterances begin with a stressed syllable..and any unstressed or partially stressed syllables which precede the first stress may conveniently be referred to as the prehead of the utterance.

1969 D. Crystal Prosodic Syst. v. 207 The prehead, or pre-onset, refers to any utterance which precedes the onset syllable within the same tone-unit.

1981 Word 1980 31 155 Probably the most familiar of these devices are those that have to do with ‘pre-heads’ in English, i.e., syllables occurring before the first accented syllable of the tone group or phonological phrase.

1996 D. R. Ladd Intonational Phonology iii. 108 There is no disagreement that the fall-rise constitutes a single unit in the system distinct from the prehead.

1972 R. Quirk et al. Gram. Contemp. Eng. 860 Just as some modifiers are too much identified with temporary status to appear in pre-head position, so there can be modification constrained to pre-head position because it indicates permanent status.

1985 R. Quirk et al. Comprehensive Gram. Eng. Lang. 1339 Prehead. This zone includes the ‘least adjectival and most nominal’ premodifiers.

1986 Trans. Philol. Soc. 4 The French possessives..occur in pre-head position, and this..indicates that they should probably be analysed as adjectives rather than as genitive forms of pronouns.

2000 A. M. Devine & L. D. Stephens Discontinuous Syntax i. 26 Possessors and particularly subject arguments are more specifier-like and tend to occupy a prehead position in the noun phrase.