Clausal Pied-piping and Subjacency

When question-words in Malayalam are subjected to long distance dependencies, direct extractions across finite clausal complements are restricted by complement/ non-complement asymmetry due to subjacency. However, clausal piedpiping rescues such long distance question-word dependencies. Long distance dependencies of question-words across infinitive complements, on the other hand, are possible adopting both strategies and are not affected by the complement/non-complement asymmetry. This state of affairs obtains largely because finite clausal complements are held on the left periphery of the matrix clause, which is an adjunct position, while infinitival clausal complements are held in situ. Therefore, direct extraction from the former is sensitive to subjacency, while from the latter, it is not. The present article looks at this phenomenon from the minimalist point of view in terms of the Minimal Link Condition (MLC).