In LIS, a copying pronoun mostly refers to the subject of the clause. However, data show that pronoun copying can also be linked to objects, in a restricted set of cases. This happens when objects are fronted, as in (a), but the copying pronoun can also occasionally refer to an object which follows the subject, as in (b).
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a. chocolatea gianni hate ix3a
‘As for the chocolate, Gianni hates it.’
b. ix1 chocolatea hate ix3a
‘I hate chocolate.’
Examples like these allow us to assume that the pronoun copying phenomenon is not specifically linked to the syntactic roles of arguments in a sentence, but rather to their pragmatic roles, such as topic and focus (PRAGMATIC 4) (SYNTAX 2.6.4).