On a Selective “Violation” of the Complex NP Constraint *

Violations of the Complex NP Constraint (CNPC, Ross 1967) are occasionally reported in the literature. Although one perhaps would not expect (the principles underlying) the constraint to be subject to cross-linguistic variation, some authors have actually suggested that the CNPC may hold in some languages but not others (see Allwood 1976, 1982; Maxwell 1979; Hawkins 2007, §7.4.1, among others).