exist applies to material and abstract objects (or empty terms describing them) as in (ia), but not to events, as seen in (ib): (i) a. The number four exists. b. ??? The accident existed yesterday. These semantic selectional restrictions can be traced to exist and occur conveying different ways in which entities relate to space and time (Moltmann 2013b, 2018b). 5 For the distinction between worldly and non-worldly facts see also Fine (1982). 6 For an ontological account of non-worldly facts as pleonastic entities or entities abstracted from true sentences see Moltmann (2013a, Chap. 6). 123 F. Moltmann Cases moreover do not share the existence predicate specific to non-worldly facts, namely obtain. The fact that a student passed the exam may 'obtain', but not so for the case in which a student passed the exam. Cases that have the status of future epistemic alternatives may come with a special 'case'-specific existence predicate. Most strikingly, German chooses eintreten 'to enter' and French se produire 'produce itself' as the existence predicate reserved for cases of that sort7: (6) a. Der Fall, dass Hans zurückkommt, ist nicht eingetreten. 'The case that John returns did not enter.' b. Le cas ou Jean retourne ne s'est pas produit. 'The case where John returns did not produce itself.' Eintreten and se produire as existence predicates apply to no other kind of entity (except to a very restricted class of events, such as deaths). In English, present itself can be used as an existence predicate specific to future epistemic alternatives. Cases as epistemic alternatives differ from entities referred to as 'possibilities' with respect to the attribution of existence. Possibilities as mere possibilities 'exist' (the possibility that John may not return exists).8 By contrast, merely possible cases do not 'exist'. If they have the status of existing (that is, if they 'present themselves'), then they are not merely possible situations, but actual ones.9 Cases thus are fully specific situations and as such distinct from ev