In cognitive grammar, the head of a construction (2). The 'head' of a phrase is a single word that determines the categorical status of the phrase (for example, a noun heads a noun phrase).

Consider the following example: a girl at the bus stop knitting a scarf. This phrase contains a number of word-level constituents including three nouns: girl, the compound noun bus stop and scarf. However, only one of these heads the phrase, namely girl. Thus this noun serves to determine the profile of the entire phrase, meaning that the entire phrase is a noun phrase. Thus this noun is the profile determinant.