'In summary, [The Cambridge Handbook of Japanese Linguistics] serves as an excellent reference book for both established and aspiring linguists … All in all, the editor, Yoko Hasegawa, as well as the 27 other contributors recruited from around the world, should be congratulated and thanked for their excellent work in producing this impressive handbook.' Junko Mori, The Journal of Japanese Studies
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.