The information-structural categories of focus and topic are examined with respect to the constructions in which they can feature, including fronting, dislocation, subject inversion, and presentational sentences. The role and effects of illocutionary force distinctions (e.g., declarative, interrogative, exclamative) and different predication types (thetic vs non-thetic predications) are also taken into consideration. Despite the many similarities, (micro)variation in this area proves quite considerable. In relation to Romance comparative data, this chapter shows that this variation can be accounted for by pragmatic-discourse factors and structural licensing principles that are indeed related to information structure.

This chapter analyses the role of grammars, dictionaries and other metalinguistic texts in the history and present practice of language standardization, with examples and case studies taken from a broad range of European and non-European languages. The chapter presents a typology of codification types, with examples: standard-creating, modernizing, archaizing and standard-descriptive. It argues that dictionaries, grammars and related texts participate in a historical discourse tradition, with a number of shared features, but where participation in that discourse tradition does not necessarily indicate the presence of a standard language ideology. It presents that discourse tradition in five broad (and inevitably sometimes overlapping) phases: early practical (professional or pedagogical) codifications; patriotic codifications (from the sixteenth century onwards in Europe); public-orientated codifications (rationalist, democratizing codifications, with a wider intended reach, from the late eighteenth century); national and nationalist codifications; and post-national(ist) challenges to standard ideologies. It also looks at the important role of grammars and dictionaries for foreign language learners in the history of language standardizations and the connections to language purism. Finally, the chapter presents a framework to evaluate the difficult question of the authority, reach and ultimate influence of grammars, dictionaries and related texts on usage.