LINGUIST List 15.991

Wed Mar 24 2004

Books: Morphology/Phonology: Ito, Mester

Editor for this issue: Neil Salmond <neillinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. dgw, Japanese Morphophonemics: Ito, Mester

 


Title: Japanese Morphophonemics
Subtitle: Markedness and Word Structure
Series Title: Linguistic Inquiry Monographs 

Publication Year: 2004
Publisher:	MIT Press
		http://mitpress.mit.edu/ 

Book URL: http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/FL20030262090368

Author: Junko Ito, University of California, Santa Cruz
Author: Armin Mester, University of California, Santa Cruz 

Paperback: ISBN: 0262590239, Pages: 326, Price: U.S. $ 30 

			
Abstract:

The sound pattern of Japanese, with its characteristic pitch accent
system and rich segmental alternations, has played an important role
in modern phonology, from structuralist phonemics to current
constraint-based theories. In Japanese Morphophonemics Junko Ito and
Armin Mester provide the first book-length treatment of central issues
in Japanese phonology from the perspective of Optimality Theory.

In Optimality Theory (OT), a generative grammar (including its
phonological component) is built directly on the often conflicting
demands of different grammatical principles and incorporates a
specific kind of optimization as the means of resolving these
conflicts. OT offers a new perspective from which to view many of the
processes, alternations, and generalizations that are the traditional
subject matter of phonology. Using the phonology of compounds as an
analytical thread, Ito and Mester revisit central aspects of the sound
pattern of Japanese and submit them to the rigor of OT. In pursuing
both well-known and less-explored issues in this area, they show that
an optimality-theoretic approach not only provides new solutions to
old puzzles but also suggests interesting new questions for both
descriptive work and theoretical research.


Lingfield(s):	Morphology
		Phonetics
		Phonology

Subject Language(s):	Japanese (Language code: JPN)
		
Written In:	English (Language Code: ENG) 


 See this book announcement on our website: 
 http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=9473.