A Reference Grammar of Japanese [Hardcover]

Samuel Elmo Martin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0824828186 | ISBN-13: 978-0824828189 | Publication Date: December 2003 | Edition: Bilingual

Have you ever wondered about a Japanese sentence your textbook fails to explain? Do you feel unsure about the use of "wa," "ga," and "mo?" Or what the rules and meanings of words in their literary forms are? If so, you will find your answers in A Reference Grammar of Japanese, the most comprehensive and reliable reference source available.

With an extensive 105-page index, the reader will quickly find explanations for particles such as wa, ga, mo, ni, and de; difficult nouns such as mono, koto, tokoro, wake, hazu, and tame; sentence extensions such as ne, yo, sa, yara, and nari; verb tenses, literary forms, negative forms--in short, everything concerned with the Japanese language. For the serious student, this book is indispensable for clearing up the ambiguities of puzzling Japanese sentences.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A truly monumental work.... One of the best reference grammars ever written about any language." -- Journal of Asian Studies

"A wealth of information has been packed between the covers." -- Monumenta Nipponica

"By far the most comprehensive reference grammar of Japanese in the English language (and perhaps in any language)." -- Journal of Linguistics

About the Author

Samuel E. Martin received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Oriental languages from the University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. in linguistics from Yale University. A member of the Yale University faculty since 1950, he has served as chairman of the Department of East and South Asian Languages and Literatures, and the Department of Linguistics. The author of a large number of well-received books and papers on Japanese and Korean, Martin has also been a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Teachers of Japanese and has served on the editorial board of Papers in Japanese Linguistics.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1198 pages
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press; Bilingual edition (December 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824828186
• ISBN-13: 978-0824828189
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 7.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,461,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference grammar, February 20, 2008

By 

pwaryuex (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Reference Grammar of Japanese (Hardcover)

I agree with most of what's been said, so I'll just outline it from a perspective of someone who learnt Japanese in a communicative environment, and who is now looking at it from a linguistic perspective.

1. As per the title, the book is a reference grammar. This means that it is *not* intended for people wanting to simply learn from it. It means that it is *not* intended for beginners students. Rather, it means that the book is intended for two types of people; a) advanced/intermediate students/speakers of the language who are interested in having a *reference* to the lexico-grammatical forms of the language. b) Linguists who are interested in understanding some forms of the language for whatever reason.

To say that the book is 'learner unfriendly' goes against the whole point of the book; you simply cannot rate this book 1/5 because of this! The book is intended as a reference grammar!

2. The book is very extensive. I haven't come across any forms in the language that are not in this book. It also covers a lot of archaic and non-productive forms, which is helpful for people translating older or more formal texts. Despite what the author says in his defence, it is quite exhaustive. Yes this is daunting for some, but then you should obviously consult a different work.

3. The use of transliteration. The book doesn't use native Japanese characters because it is aimed not only as a reference for advanced students of the language, but for linguists who may not have time to learn any characters, or who may simply need to look up one form.

4. The book is accessible to linguists, and despite what has been said, is approachable from 'the middle'. You do not have to start at page 1 in order to use it.

I only have two criticisms:

a) Format. Sometimes, the lack of headings/bolding/boxes/etc makes it difficult to quickly locate specific forms or to find paradigm examples. This means that you have to sometimes read a few pages to find one construction.

b) Terms. The terms used by the author are sometimes a little idiosyncratic to the older schools of Japanese grammatical theory. Even though there is a 2004 edition, it seems that a few terms could be updated to more modern universally-accepted grammatical terms.

Other than that, I can definitely recommend the book!

If possible, I would give it four and a half stars.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference, but not intended for casual use, April 2, 2007

By 

P. Rothstein "Regular guy" (Huntingdon, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reference Grammar of Japanese (Hardcover)

I understand the other reviewers' concerns, it is probably not intended to teach usage, nor as a learner's book. For translations, it is indispensable. Pretty much everything questionable that I have run into when doing translations from late-19th century Japanese on has been explained in Martin. Yes, the index is huge and spotty at times, but it is well worth the pain if you want to do accurate translations, especially of historical materials.

As for the romaji, I've had it explained to me by people who like the Yale system that the system allows one to break up and analyze grammatical patterns in a way in which kana do not- for instance, when examining different inflections of "verbs." It's artificial, but at times more incisive a tool than using native Japanese orthography (which was developed after the spoken language anyway...). I learned using Jorden anyway, which renders my mind twisted according to some...

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very comprehensive grammar, February 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Reference Grammar of Japanese (Hardcover)

This is one of the most comprehensive grammars available on Japanese. Although old layout and typesetting has a detrimental effect on the readability, this is a must-have for any student of the Japanese language with aspirations towards linguistics.