According to typologists, agreement systems evolve from a topic construction, in which a full (morphologically unreduced) pronoun is used to refer to the topic NP anaphorically. The anaphoric pronoun is then reduced to a clitic-like element, while still retaining the pronominal content. It is then further reduced to a morphologically dependent affix, with the subsequent loss of the pronominal content to a mere agreement marker.
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Morimoto, Y. (2009). From Topic to Subject Marking: Implications for a Typology of Subject Marking. In: de Hoop, H., de Swart, P. (eds) Differential Subject Marking. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 72. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6497-5_9
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