If you were to mark only one participant on the verb...

If you were to reference only one participant on the verb in
a direct-inverse language (WP: <http://tinyurl.com/2su787>),
which of the following would you prefer to reference?

  (1) the participant which is higher on the nominal
      hierarchy,
  (2) the participant which is lower in the nominal
      hierarchy,
  (3) the participant which is the topic,
  (4) the participant which is the comment.

For the concept of nominal hierarchy see on Wikipedia
<http://tinyurl.com/2w4eo6>, and/or on FrathWiki
<http://tinyurl.com/2osdhu> (in all honesty, I wrote the
latter), and for topic-comment see Wikipedia
<http://tinyurl.com/2ss5zy>.

Note that it would make little sense to choose to reference
the agent or patient in a direct-inverse language, since
direction marking would be expected to sort out who is agent
or patient!

Note also that (1) and (3) would often but not always
coincide with each other. The same would be true of
(5) and (4).

Please note rhat I'm not so much asking which choice you
think would be most natural or compliant with linguistic
universal, but rather which you think would be most
communicatively 'useful'. I might well be in a universals-
breaking mood, for all that I know! :-)


/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth, Sir, is a cow which will give [skeptics] no
more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull."
                            -- Sam. Johnson (no rel. ;)