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PASSIVE IN WESTERN MANSI // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2021. Issue 1 (31). P. 94-131

The paper describes the following aspects of the use of passive forms in Western Mansi narratives: — grammatical semantics of forms with passive morphology (passive in a strict sense, impersonal constructions, adversative, ...); — information structure of passive utterances; — pragmatic conditions for choosing between active and passive voice. On the one hand, in Western Mansi arose a specific correlation between different functions of passive with different communicative structures: — the passive in a strict sense, like the adversative, is used only with a topical object; — the adversative can be used with a topical as well as with a focal subject, whereas the passive — only with a topical one; — the adversative developed a special discursive function: the introduction of a new (focal) subject into the narrative; On the other hand, the passive in a strict sense, whose primary function is a ranking of topics according to their communicative salience, is used in Western Mansi narratives almost automatically. It is used to promote the only one patientive argument — only the main protagonist of a story. This means that speakers do not use passive voice to rank topics; rather they choose a passive form depending on an already predetermined rank.

Keywords: Mansi language, passive voice, grammatical semantics