The Mansi Ditransitive Constructions

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate Mansi ditransitive constructions from a typological point of view. Mansi has an alternation of indirective (indirect object) and secundative (secondary object) ditransitive constructions. Also passivization plays an important role in alternation. In Mansi both constructions can passivize, although the passivization of the secundative construction is more frequent. The alternation is related to topicality, the choice between the two ditransitive constructions (and the conjugation types and voice of the verb) is made in order to express the relative topicality of the arguments.