Switch-reference constructions in Iatmul: Forms, functions, and development

Abstract

The paper presents the switch-reference constructions of the Papuan language Iatmul. I will start at the highest syntactic level, by illustrating the role of switch-reference in intersentential tail–head linkage. While switch-reference marking – in Iatmul and canonically – only links clauses, but not sentences, tail–head linkage links sentences, and indicates – at least in Iatmul – whether the following verb in a new sentence has the same or a different subject referent than the last verb of the previous sentence. It thereby helps to identify the subject referent in a system where overt noun phrases are used much less than in a language like English. Tail–head linkage is further used as a strategy to link independent clauses in a language without clause coordination. Chained clauses are also switch-reference marked, but a backgrounded subordinate clause can intervene between two linked clauses (‘skipped clause’) or within one clause (‘centre-embedded clause’) of the chain and thereby make it discontinuous. I will apply relevant criteria to show that the Iatmul clause-linking verb forms are morphosyntactically subordinate, but functionally ambiguous. When linked verbs share some or all of their arguments, we obtain a linkage at a level below the clause. Such constructions can evolve into complex predicates or collocations, which may ultimately lexicalize.