Referential tracking in languages of the Himalaya: emerging switch reference? Stephen Watters Rice University 1. Introduction The typology of clause chaining for Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalaya has been characterized as having finite, chain-final clauses, typically marked for person and number agreement and other tense-aspect-modality distinctions. The verbs in chain-medial clauses, however, tend to be less finite, have reduced marking for person and number, and are neutral with respect to TAM, receiving these features from the verb in the chain-final clause (Genetti 2005, Mazaudon 2003, D. Watters 2002). Recently, several authors have reported on switch reference marking as an additional feature of the clause chaining typology in the Himalaya (D. Watters 2002, Willis 2007, Haller 2009). This is a common morphosyntactic feature described for clause chaining languages in New Guinea, Australia, America, Africa, and Northeast Caucasus, but less so in Asia. In the canonical switch-reference system, there is an obligatory inflectional category of the verb which indicates whether or not its subject is identical with the subject of an adjacent clause (Haiman and Munro 1983:ix). In this paper, I will illustrate a switch-reference pat- tern in written Dzongkha 1 which differs substantively from the canonical switch reference system; it is neither obligatory nor is it signaled by a basic sound meaning coding relation the sole function of which is to signal the continuation or change of referent in an adja- cent clause. Rather, switch-reference is manifested through a skewed distribution of lexical NPs, pronouns, and zero-mentions in finite and non-finite chain-medial clauses. So-called same subject referents, with a tendency of zero-mention, have a strong tendency to follow non-finite, temporally marked chain medial clauses. So-called different subject referents, with a tendency of lexical NPs, have a strong tendency to follow finitely marked chain- medial clauses. In effect, then, non-finite marking on chain-medial clauses functions much as "same subject" marking, and finite marking as "different subject" marking. I compare 1 Dzongkha is a southern Tibetic language, spoken primarily in Bhutan, but also in a number of communi- ties on the Indian side of the Indo-Bhutan border near Phuntsholing, Bhutan. The language has national-level status in Bhutan, and is used in school curriculum, media, and official government documents. 1