The morphology of modern Malay is a product or continuation of the morphology of classical Malay. Old Malay being the one found in the old texts such as in word lists, dictionaries, old letters, classical Malay texts, old agreements, reports etc. Old sources shall be studied to look into with the following objectives in mind: to map out the word classes, the word forms, the word formation, the functions of the unbound morphemes and the scope of the morphological processes. Another dimension shall be to look into the significance difference in the above items between the classical Malay and the present day modern Malay. The traditional structural theory of morphology shall be used , for instance those of Aronoff and Fudeman (2005) which shall be complemented with the more traditional morphological theory of Mathews (1974 and its new edition) and Nida (1963).
The above investigation on the morphology of classical Malay shall be complemented with an extended investigation into the movements of constituents (words, phrases and clauses) phenomena in the sentences of classical Malay texts. The objective inter alia is to find out in various kinds of sentences (such as in statements, questions, relative clauses, complement clauses, passive structures) the patterning of the constituent movements: for instance, the origin, the direction of movements, landing sites, constraints governing these movements, whether these movements are at the D-Structures or at the so called Logical Structures. In addition, it is hoped that it also shall be able to suggest the patterns of the classical Malay sentences. The data from the Malay Classical texts shall be mapped out within the theory of the Principles and Parameters for example, Culicover (1997).