Between local connectedness and sum connectedness

A new generalization of local connectedness called Z-local connectedness is introduced. Basic properties of Z-locally connected spaces are studied and their place in the hierarchy of variants of local connectedness, which already exist in the literature, is elaborated. The class of Z-locally connected spaces lies strictly between the classes of pseudo locally connected spaces (Commentations Math. 50(2)(2010),183-199) and sum connected spaces ($\equiv$ weakly locally connected spaces) (Math. Nachrichten 82(1978), 121-129; Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn. AI Math. 3(1977), 185-205) and so contains all quasi locally connected spaces which in their turn contain all almost locally connected spaces introduced by Mancuso (J. Austral. Math. Soc. 31(1981), 421-428). Formulations of product and subspace theorems for Z-locally connected spaces are suggested. Their preservation under mappings and their interplay with mappings are discussed. Change of topology of a Z-locally connected space is considered so that it is simply a locally connected space in the coarser topology. It turns out that the full subcategory of Z-locally connected spaces provides another example of a mono-coreflective subcategory of TOP which properly contains all almost locally connected spaces.