Every linguistic theory has to come to grips with a fundamental property of human language: the
existence of exceptions i.e. phenomena that do not follow the standard patterns one observes
otherwise. The contributions to this volume discuss and exemplify a variety of approaches to
exceptionality within different formal and non-formal frameworks.Topics include criteria for
exceptionality the diachronic rise of exceptions the relevance of different grammatical
subsystems and their interaction in the explanation of exceptions and the crucial
characteristics of grammatical models that can accommodate exceptions. A special feature of the
book is that the articles are accompanied by peer-commentaries and responses thereupon thus
opening up the papers to further discussion.
