This project investigates in how far the second language acquisition of negative concord (NC) languages presupposes the acquisition of negative concord items (for example nessuno/niente, 'nobody/nothing'). In particular, we investigate the acquisition of NC in second language Italian by learners whose native language is Spanish (a NC system), English (a non-NC system featuring negative polarity items) or German (a non-NC system featuring negative quantifiers). We aim to shed some new light on the nature of negative concord items and their role in the emergence of NC systems.