Japanese and Korean are typologically quite similar, so a linguistic phenomenon in one language often has a counterpart in the other. The papers in this volume are intended to further compare and/or contrast research in both languages. This volume is a collection of papers presented at the 9th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, Ohio 1999. Some papers explore the historical roots of japanese linguistics and its impact on modern day Japanese and Korean, others investigate the languages' vowel and consonant systems. Contributors also discuss the importance of syllable structure, difficulties in possession construction, acquisition of passive construction in Japanese, and the influence of sentence structure on the interpretation of Korean words.