A comprehensive yet concise survey of Japanese linguistics, from leading scholars in the field.

Part I. Overview: 1. Introduction Yoko Hasegawa; 2. The history of the language Bjarke Frellesvig; 3. Layered structure, positional shifts, and grammaticalization Rumiko Shinzato; 4. Linguistic typology and the Japanese language Kaoru Horie; 5. Dialects Michinori Shimoji; 6. Writing and literacy in modern Japan Florian Coulmas; Part II. Sound System and Lexicon: 7. Moras and syllables Timothy J. Vance; 8. Pitch accent Haruo Kubozono; 9. Intonation Yosuke Igarashi; 10. Semantics and morphosyntax of mimetics Kiyoko Toratani; 11. Events and properties in morphology and syntax Taro Kageyama; Part III. Grammatical Foundation: 12. Case Wataru Nakamura; 13. Subjects and topics Yoko Hasegawa; 14. Negation Hideki Kishimoto; 15. Tense and aspect Wesley M. Jacobsen; 16. Modality Heiko Narrog; 17. Logophoricity, viewpoint, and reflexivity Yukio Hirose; 18. Word order and extraction: a functional approach Mitsuaki Shimojo; Part IV. Grammatical Constructions: 19. Nominalization Masayoshi Shibatani; 20. Clausal noun modification Yoshiko Matsumoto; 21. Internally headed relativization and related constructions Kyoko Hirose Ohara; 22. Benefactives Nobuko Hasegawa; 23. Passives Shoichi Iwasaki; 24. Conditionals Seiko Fujii; Part V. Pragmatics/Sociolinguistics: 25. Sentence-final particles Emi Morita; 26. Linguistic politeness Michael Haugh; 27. Speech style shift Haruko Minegishi Cook; 28. Discourse/conversation analysis Polly Szatrowski; 29. Japanese language, gender, and sexuality Shigeko Okamoto.