NPI Licensing from Non-finite Clauses

The current paper examines the long-distance licensing of Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) out of non-finite clauses, which are known as weak CP phases in Korean. In Russian, long-distance NPI licensing is also permitted, even when a negative element and an NPI span across a clause boundary. Such long-distance NPI licensing does not adhere to the Phase-Impenetrability Condition (PIC), which requires the locality of [+Neg] feature checking in finite clauses. To explain why long-distance NPI licensing is allowed in bi-clausal structures, the paper suggests that the checking interaction between the [+Neg] feature on the head of NegP and an NPI can occur across the weak CP phases of non-finite clauses marked by complementizers such as -ko, -ki, -key, -cikey, or -myen. Unlike Korean, English NPIs must adhere to the C-command condition, regardless of whether they are located in simplex or bi-clausal structures. Long-distance NPI licensing in Korean is permissible only when the NPI is located in the infinitival complement, which differs from English long-distance NPI licensing, where NPIs are licensed across both finite and non-finite clauses.