Toward a Theory of Monomial Preorders

In this paper we develop a theory of monomial preorders, which differ from the classical notion of monomial orders in that they allow ties between monomials. Since for monomial preorders, the leading ideal is less degenerate than for monomial orders, our results can be used to study problems where monomial orders fail to give a solution. Some of our results are new even in the classical case of monomial orders and in the special case in which the leading ideal defines the tangent cone.