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Rumiko Shinzato and Leon A. Serafim bring a new dimension to kakari musubi (a type of focus construction, henceforth KM) research, incorporating Japanese and Western linguistic theories, and synthesizing Okinawan and Japanese scholarship. Specifically, they analyze still-extant Okinawan KM in comparative perspective with its now extinct Japanese counterpart, while also offering reconstructed Proto-Japonic forms. Major hypotheses on the origins and demise of KM with insight from Okinawan are also evaluated. In addition, viewing KM as consisting of kakari particle + nominalized musubi predicate, they compare KM with its structural analogs, such as (1) Modern Japanese no-da , (2) its corollary in Japanese Western Periphery dialects, and (3) English it-clefts. Finally, the authors apply iconicity-based analyses and grammaticalization theory, interpreting correspondences between deictic-origin particles, which are shared, their epistemically unique musubi forms, and their respective functions.

Ryukyuan language --- Japanese language --- Grammar. --- Grammar, Comparative --- Japanese. --- Dialects --- History.

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The UNESCO atlas on endangered languages recognizes the Ryukyuan languages as constituting languages in their own right. This represents a dramatic shift in the ontology of Japan's linguistic make-up. Ryukyuan linguistics needs to be established as an independent field of study with its own research agenda and objects. This handbook delineates that the UNESCO classification is now well established and adequate. Linguists working on the Ryukyuan languages are well advised to refute the ontological status of the Ryukyuan languages as dialects. The Ryukyuan languages constitute a branch of the Japonic language family, which consists of five unroofed Abstand (language by distance) languages.The Handbook of Ryukyuan Languages provides for the most appropriate and up-to-date answers pertaining to Ryukyuan language structures and use, and the ways in which these languages relate to Ryukyuan society and history. It comprises 33 chapters, written by the leading experts of Ryukyuan languages. Each chapter delineates the boundaries and the research history of the field it addresses, comprises the most important and representative information.

Ryukyuan language --- Japanese language --- Languages & Literatures --- East Asian Languages & Literatures --- Koguryo language --- Okinawan language --- Ryukyu language --- Grammar --- Dialects --- Grammar, Comparative --- Japanese --- Terms and phrases --- History --- Grammar. --- Dialects. --- Japanese. --- History. --- J5092 --- J5027 --- Japan: Language -- minority languages in Japan -- Ryukyuan --- Japan: Language -- dialects and variation -- Kyūshū and Okinawa regions --- Grammar Writing. --- Historical Linguistics. --- Language Endangerment. --- Language Revival and Revitalization. --- Ryukyuan Languages.