Expecting the Unexpected: Exceptions in Grammar

✍ Scribed by Horst J. Simon and Heike Wiese (Editors)

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 461
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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.

✦ Table of Contents

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