The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert

Proto-Japanese is the reconstructed language stage from which all later varieties of Japanese, including Ryukyuan, descend. It has been studied both as an end in itself (as the genetic code of the Japanese language) and as part of endeavors to clarify the genetic affiliation of Japanese. Based on the state of the field, especially as represented in Samuel E. Martin's seminal work The Japanese Language Through Time (1987), this volume singles out key areas in the reconstruction of proto-Japanese where salient progress has been or promises to be made since Martin. Contributions were invited from scholars working on the following areas: segmental phonology, use of dialect evidence, accent, morphology, and syntax. While the book first of all presents new research which advances our understanding of proto-Japanese, it also gives an overview over the state of the art in the field and its main issues.

The volume on Semantics and Pragmatics presents a collection of studies on linguistic meaning in Japanese, either as conventionally encoded in linguistic form (the field of semantics) or as generated by the interaction of form with context (the field of pragmatics), representing a range of ideas and approaches that are currently most influentialin these fields. The studies are organized around a model that has long currency in traditional Japanese grammar, whereby the linguistic clause consists of a multiply nested structure centered in a propositional core of objective meaning around which forms are deployed that express progressively more subjective meaning as one moves away from the core toward the periphery of the clause. The volume seeks to achieve a balance in highlighting both insights that semantic and pragmatic theory has to offer to the study of Japanese as a particular language and, conversely, contributions that Japanese has to make to semantic and pragmatic theory in areas of meaning that are either uniquely encoded, or encoded to a higher degree of specificity, in Japanese by comparison to other languages, such as conditional forms, forms expressing varying types of speaker modality, and social deixis.

Proto-Japanese is the reconstructed language stage from which all later varieties of Japanese, including Ryukyuan, descend. It has been studied both as an end in itself (as the genetic code of the Japanese language) and as part of endeavors to clarify the genetic affiliation of Japanese. Based on the state of the field, especially as represented in Samuel E. Martin's seminal work The Japanese Language Through Time (1987), this volume singles out key areas in the reconstruction of proto-Japanese where salient progress has been or promises to be made since Martin. Contributions were invited from scholars working on the following areas: segmental phonology, use of dialect evidence, accent, morphology, and syntax. While the book first of all presents new research which advances our understanding of proto-Japanese, it also gives an overview over the state of the art in the field and its main issues.