Grammatical relations in Mapudungun

This article presents the grammatical relations (GRs) of Central Mapudungun (unclassified, Chile and Argentina) as explored in terms of argument selection as instantiated by different constructions (i.e., the coding and behavioral properties usually discussed in the literature on alignment). The language emerges as having an essentially head-marking clausal morphosyntax that contrasts “subjects”, primary and secondary “objects,” and adjuncts, with two important provisos. These GRs differ from the run-of-the-mill notions due to the difference between direct and inverse transitive clauses (which responds to a person- and topicality-based hierarchy of participants and allows for agentive or patientive subjects and patientive or agentive primary objects, respectively), and to some apparent heterogeneity shown across constructions by the two most prominent GRs