-Nibud’ Pronouns in Irrealis Infinitivals: Structure and Licensing

This paper uses the distribution of ni- and –nibud’-series of irrealis pronouns in Russian to explore the structure of irrealis infinitivals. Members of the ni-series are negative concord items licensed by sentential negation (the head of NegP, which dominates TP); they cannot be licensed long across a CP phase boundary (Brown (1999), Fitzgibbons (2010), among others). -Nibud’-items are licensed by certain items that have been argued in the literature to be in the CP domain at LF, such as, for example, question operators ((Cheng (1991), Chomsky (1995), Rizzi (1997), (1999), Sportiche (1995))) and imperative operators ((Han (2001), (Belletti (1999), Schwager (2005), Zanuttini (2008)). This paper draws the following conclusions from the near-complementary distribution of these two pronominal series in irrealis infinitivals,: Russian irrealis infinitivals can be generated as either CPs or as TPs, and the irrealis infinitivals where–nibud’-items are licensed are CPs. -nibud’-items that are licensed in the subject position of moč’ ‘can’ undergo A-movement out of the infinitival complement CP. It is not the matrix modal word that licenses the –nibud’-items in irrealis infinitival complements. The licenseris the irrealis C of the embedded infinitival

Negative Concord in Russian. An Overview

In this article I will describe the general properties of Negative Concord in Russian, which is a strict Negative Concord language, where all negative indefinites must co-occur with sentential negation. However, there are several cases where the negation marker can be absent (like in fragment answers) or can appear in a non-standard position (like at the left of an embedded infinitival). I will take into consideration all these specific cases described by the literature on the negation system of Russian and analyse them according to current approaches to Negative Concord

Plural Superlatives and Distributivity

From the Proceedings of SALT XVIII, 200

Licensers and Meanings: Structural Properties of Dependent Indefinites

This dissertation investigates licensing conditions of dependent indefinite pronouns, such as negative concord items and pronouns that depend on the presence of a c-commanding quantifier. ^ In Chapter 2, I examine freestanding negative concord items in Russian. I provide a novel empirical generalization that freestanding negative concord items are found only in small clause predicates and complements of prepositions. Based on the availability of double negation readings for sentences with freestanding negative concord items and sentential negation, I argue that these items are licensed by a phonologically null negative head, which has a different distribution from the Russian negative head ne \u27not\u27. Ne co-occurs with TP, whereas the null negative head occurs in TP-less clauses. I also provide an analysis of the feature checking relations between negative concord items and negative heads. On the theoretical side, the chapter provides evidence that the driving force of movement is located in the moving element. ^ In Chapter 2, I take the position that negative concord items cannot contribute a negative meaning. In Chapter 3, I examine two arguments in favor of the position that negative concord items can contribute a negative meaning, namely their acceptability in elliptical fragment answers and certain cases of double negation readings of sentences with a sentential negation and negative concord items in Spanish and Russian. I show that, at least for the two arguments examined, the conclusion that negative concord items can introduce a negative meaning is not necessary, the additional negative meaning having a source other than negative concord items. ^ In Chapter 4, I examine a series of dependent indefinites in Russian, the –nibud\u27-series. I discuss the licensing of – nibud\u27 in modal environments and by quantificational NPs/adverbs. I show that quantificational NPs that license –nibud\u27 are strong quantifiers, where strength is defined in terms of an existence presupposition. I also show that –nibud\u27 affects the scope of its licenser.