This book presents analyses of major grammatical constructions of Japanese in a version of phrase structure grammar called Japanese Phrase Structure Grammar (JPSG), which is loosely based on Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG) and Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). The basic concept in JPSG is unification. In this sense, JPSG is one of what is generically called "unification-based" grammars.

This is only one phrase structure rule in JPSG. This rule states that a mother dominates a head and another daughter to the left of the head. The nonhead daughter may be either a complement, an adjunct, or another head. Thus, in JPSG, phrase structures are mainly constructed on the basis of the lexical information of items which appear as heads, complements, adjuncts, etc.. Particular emphasis is placed on the binding and control of pronouns in complementation structures and adjunction and structures, with the difference of the present approach being highlighted by reviewing representative transformational analyses.

The expected audience includes Japanese linguists as well as people interested in phrase structure grammar in general. Although this book covers only the theoretical aspects of JPSG, computational linguists will also find the book of some relevance.

—— Takao Gunji

Gunji's book is well organized, very explicit, scholarly, insightful, technically impeccable, and it deals with a topic, Japanese syntax, which is now of great interest in both the theoretical and computational linguistic communities. I firmly believe that it will become a classic in the field of Japanese grammar alongside the work of Kuno and Kuroda that will be cited by linguists long after GPSG is forgotten.

In addition to being an invaluable research resource, this book is so clearly written and comprehensive that could readily serve as the main text for a one-term linguistic course on Japanese Grammar.

Although written within GPSG framework (to which chapter 2 provides a useful introduction), much of the work concerns itself with establishing what the facts of Japanese syntax really are in a way that is largely independent of the formal devices used to describe them (for example, the careful argumentation used to establish constituency). This makes the book useful to people working on other frameworks - or in no framework at all.

—— Gerald Gazdar