One thing with person and noun class congruence that could be interesting to develop a bit would be to weaken the link between congruence on one hand and subject and object on the other.
In part this might be due to the subject not really having emerged in the language yet. So, we get a topic-comment like language where congruence might imply that the topic and the verb are "somewhat" closely aligned - i.e. agent, patient, recipient, beneficiary, instrument.
Congruence with another noun implies that the "topic" is some other type of topic - location, associate, "dangling topic", etc. The congruence picks the most salient noun with regards to the discourse that falls within the most 'core' semantic roles.
Different verbs in the same verb complex can have the same agent, yet have wildly different verb congruence:
I think a bear mauled him → I think.3sg.masc a bear maul.3sg.masc him
do you believe man will ever walk on the moon? → you believe.3sg.masc man walk.inanimate moon?
In the case with the bear, he is the topic, not "I", so he beats out the first person with regards to think. "He" is also the topic with regards to maul, so congruence is masculine. In the second example, "man" is the initial topic, but "the moon" kind of becomes significant enough to cause inanimate congruence for the second verb.
It seems possible that "important" non-agents would be likely to attract congruence in non-discourse-initial verbs, if they are likely to reappear or their identity is very important to the discourse. Thus, verb congruence in such a language serves rather to attract attention to a noun than to inform us of its role.
It seems possible that "important" non-agents would be likely to attract congruence in non-discourse-initial verbs, if they are likely to reappear or their identity is very important to the discourse. Thus, verb congruence in such a language serves rather to attract attention to a noun than to inform us of its role.
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