In some languages, certain subjects or objects might have unusual cases. In some of these languages, the noun marked in such a way still behaves in a very subject- (or object-)like way with regards to syntax, in others such nouns don't.
In Finnish, certain modal auxiliaries require the ~subject to be in the genitive instead of the nominative:
hän menee
he goes
hänen on mentävä
hänen pitää mennä
hänen on pakko mennä
three different ways of saying 'he has to go', the first being 'his is go-present-active-participle'. Translating the two others very literally would get 'his holds go', 'his is obligation to go' .
Other languages with quirky case include German (for some objects), Russian (both objects and subjects), Icelandic (both objects and subjects) and a plethora of other languages.
Quirky case tends to affect congruence in some ways, but for other ways in which it affects how much of a subject or object an argument is we'll need to get into things like subjecthood/objecthood tests and the like, and we're not going to do that for a while.
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