A Grammar of Classical Japanese

The book is intended both for learners of Classical Japanese and for linguists with or without knowledge of the Japanese language. Systematic descriptions clarify the morphological agglutination of lexical items, which is one of the salient features of Japanese. Grammatical characteristics are explained with a wealth of examples from well-known works of the classical Japanese literature. The monograph also compares Classical Japanese to Modern Standard Japanese and shows diachronic changes which have taken place. It illuminates the adaptation process which takes place when foreign elements are absorbed into Japanese: the way they are selected and filtered and the devices employed to incorporate them without destroying the backbone, in other words the syntax, of the language. The volume is clearly structured and contains seven chapters: 1. Introduction 2. Phonetics and Phonology 3. Morphosyntax 4. Word Class Descriptions 5. Honoratives 6. Rhetoric 7. Conclusions