Subjects and Case in Tarist

(Tarist is probably not going to be very developed; to the extent it fits into my language ideas more generally, it's closely related to Bryatesle, but has been influenced by some language family I've yet to come up with).

In Tarist, there are two kinds of subjects - proper subjects and improper subjects. The main visible distinction between the two is their position in the clause: proper subjects precede the verb, improper subjects follow it. A few other differences exist:

• all first and second person pronouns are proper subjects regardless of their position
• no verb congruence is triggered by improper subjects
• improper subjects do not take quirky case, but are invariably nominative
• proper subjects can bind reflexive anaphora, improper subjects cannot, and bind third person anaphora for reflexive utterances (and are thus slightly ambiguous)
• proper subjects have a mildly ergative case marking going on (except pronouns, which are strictly nom-acc)
• improper subjects are seldom topics, proper subjects are almost always topics
• improper subjects cannot be gapped over coordinated verbs, i.e. you can't do VERB SUBJ₁ (OBJ) and ____₁ VERB (OBJ), but you can do SUBJ₁ VERB (OBJ and ____₁ VERB (OBJ)
• passives only take improper subjects

Some verbs do require specifically one type or the other, but such verbs are few. Most verbs permit both, and which one uses depends, mostly, on the information structure of one's utterance. However, many nouns also lack case forms - a fair share lack the ergative, a fair share also lack the dative or the ablative. For verbs that force proper subjects to be marked with those cases, nouns that lack the relevant case will instead appear as an improper subject.