[Lingtyp] Giver and recipient sharing the same marking, but the direct object is marked differently

[Egor Kashkin]

Dear Pun Ho Lui,

This construction is attested in the Ob-Ugric languages under certain
information-structural conditions, see e.g.:

Northern Khanty
(ma) (Juwan) ān-na ma-s-em/*ma-s-əm
I Juwan cup-LOC give-PST-SG.1SG / give-PST-1SG
A + R = TOP [SOC]
‘I gave John a cup.’ (Nikolaeva 2001: 32–35)

The recipient should be a noun (it cannot take accusative), whereas
pronouns require accusative marking in this position.

For the details, see e.g. Sipőcz Katalin. Ditransitivity in the
Ob-Ugric languages. In: Congressus Duodecimus Internationalis
Fenno-Ugristarum, Oulu 2015: Plenary Papers. University of Oulu, Oulu,
Finnország, pp. 133-159 --  and the references in the article.

https://publicatio.bibl.u-szeged.hu/6426/1/Sipocz_CIFU12.pdf

Best,
Egor

чт, 19 февр. 2026 г. в 08:12, Pun Ho Lui via Lingtyp
<lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>:
>
> Dear linguists,
>
> I am wondering if there is any case where in the ditransitive ‘give’ construction, the agent (giver) and recipient are marked by the same item, but the theme (or direct object) is marked differently, e.g.:
>
> 1SG-NOM give 2SG-NOM  pen
> ‘I gave you a pen.’
>
> This pattern does not fit well in the conceptual space for core arguments (Croft 2001), so I expect it is not very common across languages.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Warmest,
> Pun Ho Lui Joe
>
>
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