The thematic connections between the articles assembled in this volume mirror the central and integrating role of 'the word' in almost all matters linguistic. With formal and descriptive aspects of the word (in inflection and derivation) at the centre, the contributions branch out into phonology, syntax, pragmatics and, most importantly, semantics. In terms of languages, the focus is mainly on English (synchronically and diachronically) but Hungarian, Polish and German are also considered among others. The theoretical focus lies on various aspects of language change on the one hand, and on morphological concepts such as productivity, or the morphological status of items on the other.