Expecting the Unexpected: Exceptions in Grammar (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] Book 216)

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. Contents......Page 6 Preface......Page 10 What are exceptions? And what can be done about them?......Page 14 Coming to grips with exceptions......Page 42 Classical loci for exceptions: morphology and the lexicon......Page 68 Exceptions to stress and harmony in Turkish: co-phonologies or prespecification?......Page 70 Lexical exceptions as prespecification: some critical remarks......Page 106 Feature spreading, lexical specification and truncation......Page 114 Higher order exceptionality in inflectional morphology......Page 118 An I-language view of morphological ‘exceptionality’: Comments on Corbett’s paper......Page 138 Exceptions and what they tell us: reflections on Anderson’s comments......Page 146 How do exceptions arise? On different paths to morphological irregularity......Page 150 On the role of subregularities in the rise of exceptions......Page 174 Statement on the commentary by Wolfgang U. Dressler......Page 180 Taking into account interactions of grammatical sub-systems......Page 184 Lexical variation in relativizer frequency......Page 186 Corpus evidence and the role of probability estimates in processing decisions......Page 208 Response to Kempson’s comments......Page 216 Structured exceptions and case selection in Insular Scandinavian......Page 224 Remarks on two kinds of exceptions: arbitrary vs. structured exceptions......Page 254 Response to Susann Fischer......Page 262 Loosening the strictness of grammar......Page 264 Three approaches to exceptionality in syntactic typology......Page 266 Remarks on three approaches to exceptionality in syntactic typology......Page 294 A reply to the commentary by Artemis Alexiadou......Page 300 Three types of exceptions – and all of them rule-based......Page 302 Anomalies and exceptions......Page 336 Distinguishing lexical and syntactic exceptions......Page 346 Disagreement, variation, markedness, and other apparent exceptions......Page 350 What is an exception to what? – Some comments on Ralf Vogel’s contribution......Page 372 Response to van Riemsdijk......Page 380 Describing exceptions in a formal grammar framework......Page 388 Explanation and constraint relaxation......Page 412 Unexpected loci for exceptions: languages and language families......Page 420 Quantitative explorations of the worldwide distribution of rare characteristics, or: the exceptionality of northwestern European languages......Page 422 Remarks on rarity......Page 444 Some more details about the definition of rarity......Page 448 Subject index......Page 454 Language index......Page 460 Main description: 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