Summary

With its multiple strata involving native Japanese, Sino-Japanese, foreign, and mimetic words, the Japanese lexicon presents a variety of theoretically intriguing properties that are considered unique among the world's languages. Couched in multifaceted approaches to the major issues in the Japanese lexicon, comprising not only its morphology and word formation but also its relation to syntactic and semantic structures, this project aims to elucidate the typological characteristics of Japanese as compared with other languages and to develop an integrated lexical theory. Issues to be taken up will include (i) the system of word formation vis-?-vis lexical strata, (ii) relations between grammatical categories and their syntactic and semantic properties, (iii) lexical meaning and syntactic structure, (iv) comprehension and cognition of the lexicon, (v) comparison with Chinese, Korean, Turkish, and other languages, as well as Japanese dialects, and (vi) historical developments in word formation processes.

The project will be carried out mainly by holding interim report meetings and symposia on a regular basis, and the ultimate outcomes are expected to be published by domestic and international publishers. In addition, attempts will be made to apply some of the theoretical outcomes to practical purposes such as building morphology databases for public use and developing teaching materials for learners of Japanese.