Agree without agreement in object clitic doubling constructions

AbstractThis chapter investigates the relationship between object clitic doubling and object agreement. It is shown that, in Amharic and similar languages, the clitic on the verb is a separate pronominal element, which can trigger weak crossover and binding theory violations. At the same time, it acts like it enters into an Agree relationship with the doubled object, even though it does not c-command the object. It is shown that this unusual cluster of properties can be explained by analysing object clitic doubling on the model of how switch-reference has been analysed in recent work—particularly object=subject switch-reference in Shipibo and Yawanawa. In both constructions, particular functional heads enter into Agree-Link relations with nearby nominals, and the pointers created by this are interpreted as referential dependency holding between non-c-commanding nominals at the level of LF.