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This volume is the first comprehensive handbook of Japanese phonetics and phonology describing all the basic phonetic and phonological structures of modern Japanese with main focus on standard Tokyo Japanese. While reviewing important studies in the fields over the past century, it also presents a summary of interesting questions that remain unsolved in the literature. This book serves as a comprehensive guide to Japanese phonetics and phonology for all interested in linguistics and speech sciences including phonetic processing, speech perception and speech production.

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This volume is the first comprehensive handbook of Japanese phonetics and phonology describing the basic phonetic and phonological structures of modern Japanese with main focus on standard Tokyo Japanese. Its primary goal is to provide a comprehensive overview and descriptive generalizations of major phonetic and phonological phenomena in modern Japanese by reviewing important studies in the fields over the past century. It also presents a summary of interesting questions that remain unsolved in the literature. The volume consists of eighteen chapters in addition to an introduction to the whole volume. In addition to providing descriptive generalizations of empirical phonetic/phonological facts, this volume also aims to give an overview of major phonological theories including, but not restricted to, traditional generative phonology, lexical phonology, prosodic morphology, intonational phonology, and the more recent Optimality Theory. It also touches on theories of speech perception and production. This book serves as a comprehensive guide to Japanese phonetics and phonology for all interested in linguistics and speech sciences.

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This volume covers all of the phenomena of Japanese that have so critically informed the development of phonological theory over the last seven decades. Each chapter introduces a topic and reviews state of the art research in a way that will make it an invaluable reference work for both readers with and readers without specialist knowledge of the language.Mary E. Beckman, Professor of Linguistics, Ohio State University Of all nonwestern languages, Japanese has been the most intensively studied from the perspective of universal grammar and has had a major impact on models and theories of phonology and phonetics. The 18 chapters in this volume give a comprehensive account of this influence. Each synthesizes the results achieved, elucidates unresolved issues and matters of debate, and points to questions on the horizon. It is a unique resource for anyone interested in this fascinating language.Michael Kenstowicz, Professor of Linguistics, MIT This volume is a real achievement, covering an impressive range of material in substantial depth and detail. It will be a basic reference for any specialist, but perhaps more importantly I think it will stand for many years as the definitive single resource for any phonologist or phonetician who needs authoritative information on any aspect of the Japanese sound system.D. Robert Ladd, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh

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