This Handbook brings together major aspects of Japanese linguistics, presenting overviews, current concerns and future directions of each topic. The areas included are phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology, language acquisition, sentence processing, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics.

Notes on Contributors. Preface. Acknowledgments. 1. Accent (Shosuke Haraguchi). 2. Mora and Syllable (Haruo Kubozono). 3. The Phonological Lexicon (Junko Itô and Armin Mester). 4. Variationist Sociolinguistics (Junko Hibiya). 5. Scrambling (Naoko Nemoto). 6. Reflexives (Takako Aikawa). 7. Passives (Hiroto Hoshi). 8. Causatives (Shigeru Miyagawa). 9. Quantification and wh-Constructions (Taisuke Nishigauchi). 10. Word Formation (Taro Kageyama). 11. Tense and Aspect (Toshiyuki Ogihara). 12. Lexical Semantics (Natsuko Tsujimura). 13. First Language Acquisition (Yukio Otsu). 14. Sentence Processing (Mineharu Nakayama). 15. Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics (Senko Maynard). 16. Sociolinguistics: Honorifics and Gender Differences (Sachiko Ide and Megumi Yoshida). Bibliography. Index.

Written by an international assembly of distinguished linguists, The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics brings together the fundamental areas of linguistic inquiry into the Japanese language. These include major theoretical developments in phonology and syntax as well as interface areas involving syntax, semantics, and morphology. The volume also explores important topics such as psycholinguistic research, ranging from first language acquisition to sentence processing, as well as discourse analysis and sociological aspects of the Japanese language. Each chapter contains an overview of the topic, current concerns, and future directions. The Handbook is ideal for those who are familiar with the topic at the basic level and wish to investigate it in more detail, but it also can be used as a language-specific and typological reference.

"The Japanese language has had a prominent position in the development of linguistic theory over the past 30 years. This handbook represents the first significant collection to provide a detailed overview of the major intellectual descriptive and analytic tasks which have occupied researchers working on the language. It will be of great value to linguists who have an interest in Japanese or who wish to see how Japanese evidence bears on many major theoretical issues." Peter Sells, Stanford University "I found it very useful that each chapter provides references for those who want to investigate a specific topic further; this is a source to consult for anyone who wants to start research on Japanese linguistics." Functions of Language