Adopting Berrendonner's (1990, 2002) and Berrendonner et al.'s (forthcoming) distinction between “micro-syntax“ and “macro-syntax“, as well as the orthogonal dichotomy between foregrounded and backgrounded discourse segments (cf. Khalil 2005), this paper aims to examine certain “non-canonical“ interactions amongst these domains. The overall aim is to characterise the limits of discourse-anaphoric reference as a function of the degree of backgrounding or foregrounding of the discourse units in terms of which the referent is determined and targeted.