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Recent developments in syntactic theory suggest that phrase structure is cross-linguistically more uniform than assumed so far, and that the order spec-head-complement may be the only permissible one. The present article takes issue with this view, showing that the derivation of final complementizers from initial ones by means of IP-raising faces serious difficulties. The discussion focuses on Bengali and similar languages which may be called ‘hybrid’ because both orders, IP-C as well as C-IP, are attested. Five arguments are raised which indicate that these orders are not derivationally connected. The discussion bears results which may also be of interest for linguistic typology, language change and acquisition.