Constructions denoting alternatives and preferences in the Altai language

The paper is devoted to the description of the syntactic constructions denoting alternatives in the Altai language. Two semantic types of such constructions are distinguished: constructions denoting alternatives and constructions denoting preferences. In the alternative denoting constructions, the action in the main clause does not correspond to the speaker’s expectations; in the preference denoting constructions, the action in the main clause is preferable compared to the action in the subordinate clause. The contrast is revealed through the comparison of two actions. The participial-postpositional construction with the postposition ордына ‘instead’ is used for the first type, and the four adverbial participial constructions with the form with =ганча denote the second type. Three of these constructions contain three components, with the rejected situation being represented by the =ганча adverbial participle, and the preferred situation as a conditional one; the main clause is a positive predicate артык ‘better’ or торт ‘better.’ In contrast to the participial-postpositional construction with the postposition ордына , these constructions contain the evaluating components. The predicate of the main clause with ордына may only function as an indicative, and the predicate of the main clause of the construction with =ганча may be used in indicative, imperative, conjunctive, and other modal forms.

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