On licensing NCIs in Russian

Abstract

In Russian, negative concord items are not licensed when they are complements of adjectives found in post-nominal position with respect to the noun they modify. Here I argue that such complex APs are relative clauses when licensing takes place. The licensing of negative concord items thus fails because it involves cross-clausal licensing, which is generally banned in Russian. When such complex APs are in pre-nominal position their structure is not sentential; therefore licensing of negative concord items is successful.