Abstract

1. Background

This special issue of Linguistics represents the result of a German/ Japanese research project jointly funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences (JSPS). The principal investigators on the German side were Ekkehard König (Free University of Berlin) and Peter Siemund (University of Hamburg, formerly Free University of Berlin). On the Japanese side, the research project was conducted by Masayoshi Shibatani (then Kobe University, now Rice University). Affiliated to the research project were Daniel Hole (now University of Munich, then Free University of Berlin), Akio Ogawa (Kansai University, formerly Kobe University) and Mitsunobu Yoshida (Hiroshima University). The funding period started early 2000 and came to an end late in 2002. The codes assigned to the project by the funding agencies were KO 497/8-1 and 446 JAP-113/233/0. We would like to express our gratitude to these agencies for making this cooperation possible.