Dravidian Word Order and the Clausal Peripheries

Abstract The word order of the Dravidian languages, customarily described as “free word order,” is strictly determined by clause-internal topic and focus positions within a universal functional architecture that obtains in subject–object–verb (SOV) languages. In terms of these topic/focus positions and using the assumptions of antisymmetry, this chapter explains the intriguing fact that an argument’s placement to the immediate left of the verb (the preferred position of the Dravidian wh-phrase) makes it a focus phrase, while its leftward movement makes it a topic. In clausal complementation, the Dravidian complementiser (which is a quotative, i.e. a “say”-verb) retains its verbal status and hence remains “outside” its complement; it projects its own nonfinite clause that has its own C-domain. Within the determiner phrase, the order of modifiers obeys the Cinque hierarchy.