Rather than attempting a unified picture of exaptation, this volume opens it up for further exploration and provides a forum for a discussion of refunctionalization of grammatical elements, with the focus on ''unexpected'' changes that set exaptation apart from cross-linguistically recurrent changes such as those captured by grammaticalization clines. The main value of this collection is in the diversity of views it offers and the variety of phenomena that get discussed under a common rubric.

- Natalie Operstein, on Linguist List 28.811 (10/02/2017),

As the editors remark, even readers ‘reluctant to accept a new term in linguistics’ will find that this collection ‘has a lot to offer, as the plethora of changes that the authors present are often difficult to account for in well-known types of change like grammaticalization, and lay bare the intriguing dynamics of linguistic change’. I would agree whole-heartedly with this assessment.

- Roger Lass, University of Edinburgh, in Diachronica 34:1 (2017),