While the verb-final construction does not allow a Wh any freedom of movement, the aanu construction demands obligatory movement of certain Wh phrases to the pre-auxiliary position. The two constructions studied in the thesis present a contrast in terms of the position of the Wh. This idea is translated into contemporary technical apparatus in the thesis to capture locality conditions, with Wh movement in Malayalam providing the necessary data to make a case for it. The basic proposal explored in the thesis dates back to Chomsky (1986) where the movement of a verb is proposed to be able to affect and alter a barrier. This thesis takes the position that head movement is a narrow syntactic phenomenon that can affect locality constraints thereby forcing certain phrasal elements such as a phrase containing a Wh to undergo movement.
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