Locality and Information Structure

This monograph presents a systematic exploration of Japanese syntax within the cartographic approach, paying special attention to the locality effects induced by discourse-based features such as topic and focus. Although the main focus is on Japanese syntax, implications of the analyses developed are investigated from a broader comparative perspective. Unlike previous works on Japanese generative syntax, this book is based partially on informant surveys, including the distribution of adverbials and the categorical status of nominative-Case-marked adverbials, as well as an exhaustive survey of ditransitive predicates in terms of word formation and idioms in Koujien, one of the most comprehensive Japanese dictionaries. A systematic syntactic study of the nature of clause-final particles in Japanese, an area previously only explored in the framework of discourse analysis, is also presented. It is shown that the EPP may be satisfied by such discourse-related elements as topic and focus and by these sentence final particles.

Shigeru Miyagawa, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
Among its many contributions, Yoshio Endo's book brings the CP system in Japanese into sharp focus. The CP layer has been largely ignored in this language due in part to lack of overt Wh-movement. Using tools of cartography, Endo shows the vast richness of the CP domain and demonstrates how this study in turn advances the work on cartography.