Mineharu Nakayama

Reiko Mazuka

Yasuhiro Shirai

Ping Li

A large body of knowledge has accumulated in recent years on the cognitive processes and brain mechanisms underlying language. Much of this knowledge has come from studies of Indo-European languages, in particular English. Japanese, a language of growing interest to linguists, differs significantly from most Indo-European languages in its grammar, its lexicon, and its written and spoken forms - features which have profound implications for the learning, representation and processing of language. This handbook, the second in a three-volume series on East Asian psycholinguistics, presents a state-of-the-art discussion of the psycholinguistic study of Japanese. With contributions by over fifty leading scholars, it covers topics in first and second language acquisition, language processing and reading, language disorders in children and adults, and the relationships between language, brain, culture, and cognition. It will be invaluable to all scholars and students interested in the Japanese language, as well as cognitive psychologists, linguists, and neuroscientists.

The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics: Volume 2, Japanese

Language acquisition is a human endeavor par excellence. As children, all human beings learn to understand and speak at least one language: their mother tongue. It is a process that seems to take place without any obvious effort. Second language learning, particularly among adults, causes more difficulty. The purpose of this series is to compile a collection of high-quality monographs on language acquisition. The series serves the needs of everyone who wants to know more about the problem of language acquisition in general and/or about language acquisition in specific contexts.

The Acquisition of Lexical and Grammatical Aspect

M. Rafael Salaberry

The present volume provides a cross-linguistic perspective on the development of tense-aspect in L2 acquisition. Data-based studies included in this volume deal with the analysis of a wide range of target languages: Chinese, English, Italian, French, Japanese, and Spanish. Theoretical frameworks used to evaluate the nature of the empirical evidence range from generative grammar to functional-typological linguistics. Several studies focus on the development of past tense markers, but other issues such as the acquisition of a future marker are also addressed. An introductory chapter outlines some theoretical and methodological issues that serves as relevant preliminary reading for most of the chapters included in this volume. Additionally, a preliminary chapter offers a substantive review of first language acquisition of tense-aspect morphology. The analysis of the various languages included in this volume significantly advances our understanding of this phenomenon, and will serve as an important basis for future research.

Yasuhiro Shirai

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