The book contains a number of studies in Japanese phonology and morphology, all analyses by leading scholars in the field. It presents an overview of the work that has been done in Japan and other countries and offers new solutions to long-standing problems. In the phonology chapters, it focuses on segmental as well as suprasegmental issues, including voicing and tone, approaching these issues from a variety of perspectives, including Optimality Theory and Government Phonology. In the morphology chapters, attention is given to truncation patterns and the possibilities for compound formation.

This book presents a number of studies which focus on the [voice] grammar of Japanese, paying particular attention to historical background, dialectal diversity, phonetic experiment, and phonological analysis. Both voicing processes in consonants (such as Sequential Voicing, or Rendaku) and vowels (such as vowel devoicing) are examined. A number of new analyses are presented, focusing on well-known data that have been controversial in phonological debate in the past, but also presenting new (or rediscovered) data, partly through the work of Japanese scholars that hitherto went mostly unnoticed, partly through new database research, and partly through phonetic experiment.