Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Detail #248: Congruence Failure for non-Agents and non-Patients

Really short idea: have verbal congruence be less mandatory for subjects and objects when they are not agents or patients. (In the case of passives, maybe patients as subjects should require congruence, but the other way around could be cool as well.) Subjects and objects can be other roles than agents and patients, e.g. stimuli (what is perceived), perceiver, recipient, instrument, etc, and many of these can appear as subjects in many languages, e.g.
this key (instrument) opens any door
I (perceiver) hear you
the music (stimuli) blared from the speakers

To make it a bit more interesting, have objects that are either recipients or patients require congruence.

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