An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics [Illustrated] [Paperback]

"While maintaining the well-balanced coverage of Japanese linguistics of the earlier edition, Tsujimura manages to explore a variety of new issues in the experimental and applied areas. The well-chosen additional problem sets guide students towards important topics for future research." Junko Ito, University of California, Santa Cruz "This revised edition provides in-depth coverage of all areas of Japanese grammar and will be a valuable pedagogical and reference work for anyone interested in Japanese linguistics." Peter Sells, Stanford University "In this new edition, Tsujimura gives in-depth discussions of all major areas in Japanese linguistics, including recent discoveries and a whole new chapter on language acquisition." Haruo Kubozono, Kobe University, Japan. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The new edition of An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics gives an updated, comprehensive account of Japanese linguistics, covering phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, language change, dialect variation, and gender differences.

• Changes in the new edition include a new chapter on language acquisition, which includes experimental research and its implications for phonological, syntactic, and semantic issues
• Introduces linguistic notions and terminology and discusses theoretical analyses of linguistic phenomena in the Japanese language
• Focuses primarily on phonology and syntax, and adopts a generative grammar framework
• Includes exercises exploring descriptive and theoretical issues and reading lists which introduce students to the research literature

An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics gives a comprehensive account of Japanese linguistics, covering phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, language variation including dialectal variation and gender differences, and language acquisition. The author introduces linguistic notions and terminology and discusses theoretical analyses of linguistic phenomena in the language. This text serves as a descriptive source and a theoretical foundation for students and scholars in linguistics as well as those interested in the Japanese language more generally. It is also intended to be used as a pedagogical tool to provide basic notions and terminology in linguistics, and to introduce students to linguistic argumentation.

This new edition offers an entirely new chapter on language acquisition which includes experimental research and its implications for phonological, syntactic, and semantic issues. The coverage of morphology has been expanded to include new sections on nominalization and compounding, and a new discussion of pragmatics and discourse analysis is incorporated into coverage of semantics. Each chapter is also supported by exercises exploring descriptive and theoretical issues, and by updated reading lists which introduce students to the research literature.

Natsuko Tsujimura is Professor of Japanese Linguistics at Indiana University. Her publications include The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics (Blackwell, 1999), and she has published extensively on various aspects of lexical semantics.