Throughout the program, these discoveries have been assumed to be empirical generalizations in need of a theoretical explanation (thus responding to conceptual objections sometimes raised against the cartographic program: see, e.g., Gallego & Ott, eds. 2024 for discussion). The fundamental question to be addressed is the following: how can the observed generalizations be deduced from the interplay of abstract syntactic and interface principles (Cinque & Rizzi 2010)? In this perspective, cartographic research can function as a generator of well-defined empirical puzzles, which can nourish grammatical theory and enrich its empirical basis.

In the spirit of these remarks, I will address two empirical generalizations involving left-peripheral topics and foci across languages, with special reference to Romance:

1.    Multiple topics may be possible, but left-peripheral focus is generally unique.

2.    When topic and focus co-occur in the left periphery, the order is Top > Foc.

The uniqueness of left-peripheral focus has been derived from properties of the interface with meaning of the focus-presupposition articulation (Rizzi 1997), but alternative accounts may involve properties of the interface with sound (intonation), or syntactic locality. I will discuss the division of labor between these possible analytic directions, and will address the empirical issues raised by the distribution of so-called focalizing adverbials (building on Quarezemin & Tescari-Neto 2023).

      As for generalization 2., I will propose to deduce it from a rather straightforward interpretive condition on possible comments. The generalization is robustly supported by cross-linguistic evidence, but it is apparently challenged by various exceptions. For instance, Italian permits topics (clitic left dislocated nominals) to surround a left-peripheral Focus (Rizzi 1997), hence permitting the order Foc>Top. This will lead to an analysis of the special interpretive properties of the post-focal topic position, and to a characterization of the relevant parametrization.

      I will then extend the comparative perspective beyond Romance and address certain exceptions to generalization 2. observed in Bantu languages, which offer a wealth of cases of topicality and focus overtly marked in the morphology. Based on the analysis of Basaá (Bassong 2014, Bassong, Belletti & Rizzi 2026) I will discuss cases in which the order Foc > Top is apparently possible, with a restriction to certain topical subjects.  This will lead to a discussion of similarities and differences between topics and subjects, and their interactions with focus.

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