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. This handbook is ideal for those who are familiar with the topic at the basic level and wish to investigate it in more detail, but can also be used as a language-specific and typological reference.

Contents: Notes on Contributors. Preface. Acknowledgments. 1. Accent: Shosuke Haraguchi (University of Tsukuba). 2. Mora and Syllable: Haruo Kubozono (Kobe University). 3. The Phonological Lexicon: Junko Itô and Armin Mester (both University of California at Santa Cruz). 4. Variationist Sociolinguistics: Junko Hibiya (Keio University). 5. Scrambling: Naoko Nemoto (Mt Holyoke College). 6. Reflexives: Takako Aikawa (Microsoft). 7. Passives: Hiroto Hoshi (School of Oriental and African Studies). 8. Causatives: Shigeru Miyagawa (MIT). 9. uantification and wh-Constructions: Taisuke Nishigauchi (Kobe Shoin Women's University). 10. Word Formation: Taro Kageyama (Kwansei Gakuin University). 11. Tense and Aspect: Toshiyuki Ogihara (University of Washington). 12. Lexical Semantics: Natsuko Tsujimura (Indiana University). 13. First Language Acquisition: Yukio Otsu (Keio University). 14. Sentence Processing: Mineharu Nakayama (Ohio State University). 15. Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics: Senko Maynard (Rutgers University). 16. Sociolinguistics: Honorifics and Gender Differences: Sachiko Ide and Megumi Yoshida (Japan Women's University). Bibliography. Index.