This volume presents a selection of papers read at the international conference "Lexicon in Focus", held under the auspices of the Sonderforschungsbereich "Theory of the Lexicon" (Düsseldorf / Wuppertal / Cologne) at Wuppertal in August 1998. This conference focused on the lexical perspective on questions that dominated the linguistic discussion of the nineties. It brought together experts from different fields, ranging from lexical phonology to lexical semantics. The participants were asked to discuss three issues which cross these different fields and which we considered matters of controversy: Lexical constraints and the generation of candidates – Economy principles in the lexicon – Semantic composition within and outside of words.