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In this paper, we propose a uniform motivation for subject case alternations that align with distinctions in tense and aspect and those that align with a distinction between stage- and individual-level predication. We argue that both follow from an economical use of case marking that is made possible by grounding. If the argument function of an event participant can be determined on the basis of information available in the here and now, the use of case marking can be judged redundant and suspended because of economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Stella Gryllia regarding the topicality interaction and order of words in Greek, one by Lisa Brunetti about Spanish and Italian language, and one by Mark de Vries on various types of left and right dislocation in Dutch language.

In this article we investigate topics in NGT (Sign Language of the Netherlands). NGT is a topic-prominent language in which sentences start with the topic(s) and the remainder of the sentence is interpreted as a comment about that topic. Topics are identifiable in NGT first and foremost by their prosody: they always form a separate prosodic unit. We show that NGT has different types of topics that can precede the rest of the sentence: argument topics and spatio-temporal topics. Both types of topic occur sentence-initially, but when both are present in one sentence, argument topics precede spatio-temporal topics. The main aim of our article is to argue that all types of topics can be referred to by sentence-final indexes, contra Bos (Pronoun copy in Sign Language of the Netherlands: 1–3, Signum, 1995) who claimed that copied sentence-final indexes always refer to subjects. We will analyze these clause-final anaphoric pronouns as an instantiation of topic agreement. Thus, we argue that NGT has topic agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]