Object-oriented switch-reference in Pano

The label switch-reference has been used to refer to a widely-attested grammatical category whose principal function is to indicate co-reference relations among arguments of different clauses in discourse. Switch-reference is attested in languages of most regions of the world and is widespread in Amazonia, where Pano languages seem to exhibit some of the most complex switch-reference systems documented so far. This chapter explores switch-reference in Pano languages, focusing on what is called here ‘object-oriented switch-reference’ (i.e. a diverse range of switch-reference markers that encode co-reference relations based on the object argument of either any or both the marked and the controlling clause). After introducing the most important facts about switch-reference in Pano, the chapter discusses and illustrates the synchronic morphosyntactic and semantic properties of object-oriented switch-reference. It also provides some diachronic hypothesis about their origin and evolution, proving that this typologically uncommon type of switch-reference evolved from nominalizations.