FG and the dynamics of discourse 219entity or a thing. As the reader will remember, Dik (1978: 19) explains that
Topic is “the entity ‘about’ which the predication predicates something in
the given setting”. A threefold implication follows: (a) only one Topic per
predication is allowed; (b) this function can only be assigned to terms (i.e.
discourse referents/participants, mainly Subjects or Objects), and (c) topi-
cal elements are endowed with different degrees of referential accessibility
in terms of being (i) Given Topics (GivTop), (ii) SubTopics (SubTop), (iii)
Resumed Topics (ResTop), or (iv) New Topics (NewTop): the first presen-
tation of a D-Topic is a NewTop,^8 and an entity so introduced becomes a
GivTop if re-introduced; likewise, an entity which is mentioned, temporar-
ily neglected and later revived is a ResTop, while an entity inferred from
other entities is labelled SubTop.
This account of D-Topics in terms of entities endowed with different
degrees of referential accessibility raised a number of problems explained
in detail elsewhere (Gómez-González 1998b, 2001: 156–168), most impor-
tantly:
(a) the assumption that only entities qualify for D-topical status, while a
person’s pragmatic information also includes the SoAs in which
those entities play a role;
(b) the apparent identification of Topic with predication-internal entities,
as opposed to Theme and Tail (both predication-external), for it
seems that P1/P2 assignment neither is a discrete distinction nor can
be upheld as the only means of distinguishing these categories;
(c) the difficulties involved in identifying or distinguishing the four
Topic types.^9
In an attempt to surmount at least some of the aforementioned compli-
cations, I will here resort to a more comprehensive, more cognitively-
oriented notion of D-Topic, from Kemmer (1995: 58):
a prominent conceptualisation which acts as a kind of cognitive anchoring
point; other [...] conceptualisations are brought into the discourse by virtue
of their perceived ties to the reference point.Crucially D-Topics of this kind, whether local or global, entail relation-
ships rather than things or entities.^10 This interpretation reflects the fact that
connected discourse comprises a succession of attentional frames – a series
of intonation units mapped onto clauses, or parts of clauses – each profiling
a relationship (Langacker 2000, 2001a, b; Gómez-González 2001). At the