The syntax of the Vedda language

Abstract

This paper is an inquiry into the syntax of the Vedda language from a generative syntactic perspective conducted in accordance with Noam Chomsky’s (1980-) Principles and Parameters (PP that despite the availability of many scrambling opportunities, the Vedda language remains configurational; that it does not allow certain word orders present in the Sinhala language; that it is strongly Head final as the Sinhala language; that it does not have an articulated CP or TP periphery; that their Neg marker serves a number of modal functions in addition to Neg marking; that both Focus and Wh are located in the Focus Head; and that on the whole, the syntax of the Vedda language largely aligns with the syntax of the Sinhala language.