Information-structural encoding of recipient in non-canonical alignments of Persian

This chapter aims to study the prepositional marking and the postpositional marking of the recipient in the Persian non-canonical ditransitive alignments, which are associated respectively with a particular role that the recipient as topic or exhaustive focus plays in the information-structural representation of the benefactive event. I will argue that overriding of the theme and recipient by each other with respect to topicality, grammatically achieved by utilizing two distinct operations including preposing and left-dislocation, determines the intended grammatical marking of the recipient. Moreover, the pragmatic alternation between the two types of coding portrays a constructional pattern which will be accounted for in terms of a Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) framework.

• Affiliations: 1: Trinity College Dublin, Ireland