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predictable, and/or restricted in distribution. However, I show that all five of these properties are amply attested in both ‘syllable-‘and ‘word-tone’ systems. Further support will be presented for the view that prototypes for stress-accent vs tone are defined by twodistinct clusters of properties from which nonprototypical ‘pitch-accent systems’ freely pick-and-choose, producing mixed,ambiguous, and sometimes analytically indeterminate systems which appear to be ‘intermediate’. These systems neither define a thirdprototype nor can they be placed along a single continuum.Atakan Ince (University of Maryland, College Park) Session 29Non-wh-phrases in sluicing in TurkishThis study analyzes sluicing structures in Turkish where one of the remnants is a wh-phrase and the other a non-wh-phrase. I showthat these are not gapping structures because whereas the ordering of remnants in gapping is not strict, sluicing requires the strictordering of the non-wh-DP before the wh-phrase, even when the wh-phrase is the subject and the DP is the object. This ordering is theopposite of similar structures in Hungarian and Russian. I argue that the non-wh-phrase is in contrastive TopicP and the wh-phrase isin FocusP, and the ordering of these phrases differs in languages.David Ingram (Arizona State University) Session 53Phonological determinants of the vocabulary spurt in childrenThe present study explores the hypothesis that the vocabulary spurt children undergo between the ages of 1 and 2 is the result ofchanges in their phonological system. Phonological analyses were conducted on diary studies of children acquiring English, French,Hebrew, and Czech. The results found partial support for the hypothesis, with the children showing in varying degrees phonologicalchanges coinciding with the word spurt. Changes in phonotactics, either due to new combinations of acquired sounds or the spread ofacquired sounds to new word positions, led to greater increases in word learning than the addition of new sounds.Shinichiro Ishihara (University of Potsdam) Session 21Focus intonation embedding in Japanese wh-questionI report experimental results on a property of focus intonation (FI) in Japanese that has not been reported before. Deguchi andKitagawa 2002 and Ishihara 2002 claim that in wh-question sentences, the prosodic domain of FI corresponds to the semantic scope ofthe wh-question. In a matrix wh-question containing an indirect wh-question, where two wh-phrases take different scopes, twoindependent FIs are expected. The results reveal that in such sentences, the FI of the embedded wh-question is realized, but embeddedinside that of the matrix wh-question. I discuss problems of previous accounts of Japanese FI and possible solutions.Michael Israel (University of Maryland, College Park) Session 17Who cares & why bother: Polarity sensitivity in the verbal lexiconI argue that the restricted distributions of polarity sensitive verbs reflect their status as grammaticalized scalar pragmatic operators.Both verbal NPIs and PPIs are shown to cluster in a few narrowly defined semantic domains where they profile inherently scalarrelations between a volitional experiencer and an event type. While such polarity items conform to very general patterns, evidencefrom both adult and children's usage suggests that they are mentally represented in ways that are item-specific and that must belearned from experience. These results are taken as evidence for a usage-based approach to the grammar of polarity sensitivity.Rika Ito (St. Olaf College) Session 64Hmong in transition: Acoustic analysis of Hmong American English in the Twin CitiesI examine the vowel system of 12 Hmong Americans in the Twin Cities to assess their degree of accommodation to the NorthernCities Shift. The Hmong are one of the latest to arrive in the U.S. from Asia. Preliminary results suggest that Hmong Americans haveaccommodated their speech to the local norm to some degree. The low front vowel is fronted but not raised for both men and women.The low back vowels are not merged, and both occupy relatively conservative positions. I discuss the effect of age, gender, level ofeducation, and age of arrival in the U.S.Ray Jackendoff (Tufts University) Session 13The week after week construction & its theoretical challengesThe English NPN (week after week) construction is productive with five prepositions--by, for, to, after, and (up)on--with a variety ofmeanings, including succession, juxtaposition, and comparison; it also has numerous idiomatic cases. This mixture of regularity andidiosyncrasy lends itself to a construction grammar account, in which the lexicon includes specified syntactic structures matched with132