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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