Starting at the very basics and working its way up to important language constructions, "An introduction to Japanese" offers beginning students, as well as those doing self-study, a comprehensive grammar for the Japanese language. Oriented towards the serious learner, there are no shortcuts in this book: no romanised Japanese for ease of reading beyond the introduction, no pretending that Japanese grammar maps perfectly to English grammar, and no simplified terminology. In return, this book explains Japanese the way one may find it taught at universities, covering everything from basic to intermediary Japanese, and even touching on some of the more advanced constructions.

Studies of Japanese syntax have played a central role in the long history of Japanese linguistics spanning more than 250 years in Japan and abroad. More recently, Japanese has been among the languages most intensely studied within modern linguistic theories such as Generative Grammar and Cognitive/Functional Linguistics over the past fifty years. This volume presents a comprehensive survey of Japanese syntax from these three research strands, namely studies based on the traditional research methods developed in Japan, those from broader functional perspectives, and those couched in the generative linguistics framework. The twenty-four studies contained in this volume are characterized by a detailed analysis of a grammatical phenomenon with broader implications to general linguistics, making the volume attractive to both specialists of Japanese and those interested in learning about the impact of Japanese syntax to the general study of language. Each chapter is authored by a leading authority on the topic. Broad issues covered include sentence types (declarative, imperative, etc.) and their interactions with grammatical verbal categories (modality, polarity, politeness, etc.), grammatical relations (topic, subject, etc.), transitivity, nominalizations, grammaticalization, word order (subject, scrambling, numeral quantifier, configurationality), case marking (ga/no conversion, morphology and syntax), modification (adjectives, relative clause), and structure and interpretation (modality, negation, prosody, ellipsis). Chapter titles Introduction Chapter 1. Basic structures of sentences and grammatical categories, Yoshio Nitta, Kansai University of Foreign Studies Chapter 2: Transitivity, Wesley Jacobsen, Harvard University Chapter 3: Topic and subject, Takashi Masuoka, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies Chapter 4: Toritate: Focusing and defocusing of words, phrases, and clauses, Hisashi Noda, National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics Chapter 5: The layered structure of the sentence, Isao Iori, Hitotsubashi University Chapter 6. Functional syntax, Ken-Ichi Takami, Gakushuin University; and Susumu Kuno, Harvard University Chapter 7: Locative alternation, Seizi Iwata, Osaka City University Chapter 8: Nominalizations, Masayoshi Shibatani, Rice University Chapter 9: The morphosyntax of grammaticalization, Heiko Narrog, Tohoku University Chapter 10: Modality, Nobuko Hasegawa, Kanda University of International Studies Chapter 11: The passive voice, Tomoko Ishizuka, Tama University Chapter 12: Case marking, Hideki Kishimoto, Kobe University Chapter 13: Interfacing syntax with sounds and meanings, Yoshihisa Kitagawa, Indiana University Chapter 14: Subject, Masatoshi Koizumi, Tohoku University Chapter 15: Numeral quantifiers, Shigeru Miyagawa, MIT Chapter 16: Relative clauses, Yoichi Miyamoto, Osaka University Chapter 17: Expressions that contain negation, Nobuaki Nishioka, Kyushu University Chapter 18: Ga/No conversion, Masao Ochi, Osaka University Chapter 19: Ellipsis, Mamoru Saito, Nanzan University Chapter 20: Syntax and argument structure, Natsuko Tsujimura, Indiana University Chapter 21: Attributive modification, Akira Watanabe, University of Tokyo Chapter 22: Scrambling, Noriko Yoshimura, Shizuoka Prefectural University

This title explains the use of Japanese words such as wa, ga and mo looking at the rules and meanings of words in their literary forms.

1. Two main themes connect the papers on Japanese syntax collected in this volume: movements of noun phrases and case marking, although each in turn relates to other issues in syntax and semantics. These two themes can be traced back to my 1965 MIT dissertation. The problem of the so-called topic marker wa is a perennial problem in Japanese linguistics. I devoted Chapter 2 of my dissertation to the problem of wa. My primary concern there was transformational genera tive syntax. I was interested in the light that Chomsky'S new theory could shed on the understanding of Japanese sentence structure. I generalized the problem of deriving wa-phrases to the problem of deriving phrases accompanied by the quantifier-like particles mo, demo, sae as well as wa. These particles, mo, demo and sae may roughly be equated with a/so, or something like it and even, respectively, and are grouped together with wa under the name of huku-zyosi as a subcategory of particles in Kokugogaku, Japanese scholarship on Japanese grammar. This taxonomy itself is a straightforward consequence of distributional analysis, and does not require the mechanisms of transformational grammar. My transformational analysis of wa, and by extension, that of the other huku zyosi, consisted in formally relating the function of the post-nominal use of wa to that of the post-predicative use by means of what I called an attachment transformation.

A succinct overview of the Japanese language, looking at grammar, vocabulary, meaning and sound structure, as well as sociolinguistics and history.

The third edition of this established textbook has been thoroughly updated and revised. It maintains its broad coverage of topics from phonetics to language variation, and increases its accessibility by incorporating a more descriptive, less theoretical approach. A fully updated new edition of this successful textbook introducing students to a wide range of issues, phenomena, and terminology in Japanese linguistics Includes extensive revisions to the chapters on phonetics, syntax and phonology, and incorporates a less theoretical, more descriptive approach Features the author’s own data, examples and theoretical analyses throughout Offers an original approach by discussing first and/or second language acquisition within each chapter Includes exercises exploring descriptive and theoretical issues and reading lists which introduce students to the research literature, both of which have been updated in this new edition