Japanese . By Shoichi Iwasaki. (London Oriental and African language library 5.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. xviii, 360. ISBN 1588112365. $114 (Hb).

要旨

Reviewed by: Japanese by Shoichi Iwasaki Tadao Miyamoto Japanese. By Shoichi Iwasaki. (London Oriental and African language library 5.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. xviii, 360. ISBN 1588112365. $114 (Hb). Japanese is one of the most well-investigated languages in the world, as reflected in a vast and growing literature. As exemplified by Samuel E. Martin’s classic book, A reference grammar of Japanese (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975) and Masayoshi Shibatani’s seminal work, Languages of Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), scholars already have access to a fair amount of material on the grammar of Japanese in its entirety, raising the question of whether another such work is necessary. Iwasaki’s response to this question is a resounding ‘yes’. Despite its format, this book might be considered a concise encyclopedia of the Japanese language. I’s presentation of the grammar is for the most part theory-neutral, making the book highly comprehensible and suitable for a wide audience. The book will be of particular interest to (1) linguists with expertise in limited aspects of Japanese grammar who seek a larger perspective on the language; (2) language instructors who need prompt answers to students’ questions on fine grammatical points; and (3) students with a thirst for understanding every important grammatical feature of the language. The book’s fourteen chapters cover a wide range of issues related to Japanese phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics. Ch. 1, ‘Overview’ (1–10), addresses the controversial question of the genetic affiliation of Japanese, presenting contrasting forms of the Altaic and Austronesian hypotheses. Ch. 2, ‘Writing system’ (11–16), briefly discusses the importation of Chinese characters or kanji and the subsequent development of two sets of kana syllabaries, highlighting the functional differences in the mixed use of these scripts in modern texts. In addition to a brief discussion of Japanese phonemes, Ch. 3, ‘Sounds’ (17–28), provides an overview of such well-investigated phonological issues as high vowel devoicing and rendaku (sequential voicing). Japanese prosody is then conventionally presented in terms of H(igh) and L(ow) pitch patterns, using the Tokyo dialect as an illustration. The following two chapters explore the morphological characteristics of Japanese. In Ch. 4, ‘Words’ (29–56), I first discusses the sources of the Japanese lexicon, which is composed of native, Sino-Japanese, and Western loan vocabularies. He then goes on to provide a semi-exhaustive classification of the lexicon, including some rather language-specific word classes (e.g. sound-symbolic words and numeral classifiers). Ch. 5, ‘Morphology’ (57–81), is divided into two sections: inflectional morphological patterns (i.e. verb, adjective, and copula) and word-formation processes involving noun equivalents (e.g. compounding and reduplication). The next five chapters discuss Japanese syntax from a primarily typological perspective. Ch. 6, ‘Argument structures’ (83–104), discusses stative and eventive predicates. I provides a thorough categorization of the argument structures of these predicates based on argument type and case assignment. In Ch. 7, ‘Tense and aspect’ (105–24), I examines tense relative to three different grammatical properties: generic or nongeneric sentences, dynamic or stative predicates, and main or subordinate clauses. While I’s classification of aspect relies on the rather conventional categories of perfective, progressive, resultative, and inchoative, his description is thorough and thought-provoking. Ch. 8, ‘Grammatical constructions’ (125–73), provides a syntactico-typological account of the well-investigated potential, passive, causative, benefactive, and reciprocal constructions. The most important topic in Ch. 9, ‘Noun phrase structures’ (175–93), [End Page 779] is the relative clause, which is characterized by the use of a gapping strategy that displays no overt markin

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