Frontmatter -- Contents -- The other end of universals: theory and typology of rara -- Rarities in numeral systems -- Additional rarities in the typology of numerals -- Explaining typologically unusual structures: the role of probability -- Right at the left edge: initial consonant mutations in the languages of the world -- "Quirky" case: rare phenomena in case-marking and their implications for a theory of typological distributions -- Negatives without negators -- Accounting for rare typological features in formal syntax: three strategies and some general remarks -- Rara and grammatical theory -- Pairwise comparisons of typological profiles -- Language endangerment, community size and typological rarity -- Backmatter