Clitics or agreement markers: A view from Tigrinya clausal possession and modal necessity

This paper discusses the connection between clausal possession and modal necessity in Tigrinya. One of the unique traits of the two constructions is that they involve the same verbal element ʔalləw-, which hosts an object marker that tracks what appears to be a subject. Using a number of diagnostics, I first demonstrate that the object marker is an agreement affix and that it should be amenable to the operation Agree. Then, using several pieces of morphosyntactic evidence, I argue that the mismatch (the object marker tracking what looks like a subject) arises due to the fact that the DP the object marker references is a “quirky” argument is forced to remerge higher to escape an intervention effect. Finally, I present a syn- tactic analysis for clausal possession and modal necessity, claiming that ʔalləw- is the spell-out of the appl head that relates two arguments in Tigrinya.