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Carol Lombard (University of South Africa) Session 73Niitsitapi personal names & naming practices: A preliminary reportThe personal naming practices of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) people appear to be rooted in ancient local knowledge systems and thoughtpatterns that have played a part in defining and maintaining the traditional Niitsitapi way of life and, thus, cultural identity for manythousands of years. Within this context, it is possible to identify patterns of relationships between naming and other aspects oftraditional cultural knowledge. An awareness and understanding of such relationships contributes towards a clearer and deeperappreciation of how Niitsitapi personal names form part of the greater sociocultural fabric in which they are embedded.Christopher J. Long (Tohoku Gakuin University) Session 11A quantitative study of factors that influence the use of apology in Japanese gratitude situationsA stepwise regression analysis of apology expressions (e.g. sumimasen) in 2,532 Japanese gratitude situations selected ‘regret’ and‘situational expectedness’ as significant predictors. Additional analyses, however, revealed that only degree of expectedness differedsignificantly by interlocutor (situations were rated less expected when performed by superiors). This, along with the finding thatapology was used more with superiors, suggests that degree of expectedness (and not regret) is the primary factor determining the useof apology in Japanese gratitude situations. This finding, which challenges the validity of Nakata's 1989 account, was confirmed in afollow-up study of 333 first through ninth-grade students.Olga Lovick (University of Alaska, Fairbanks) Session 97Siri Tuttle (University of Alaska, Fairbanks)Intonational marking of narrative & syntactic units in a Dena'ina textDena'ina is an Alaskan Athabascan language spoken by less than 60 speakers in south-central Alaska around the Cook Inlet. Weconsiders pitch and duration effects in a recorded Dena'ina text. Dlin'a Sukdu, "Mouse Story", is a traditional ‘lesson story’, dealingwith the proper treatment of animals. We find that final lowering characterizes right edges of information units sometimes isomorphicwith intonational phrases. These include dislocated nominal elements, as well as paragraph-like units which may contain pauses. Ourfindings suggest that final lowering is functionally conditioned in Dena'ina intonation.Joanna H. Lowenstein (Ohio State University) Session 21Susan Nittrouer (Ohio State University)Fricative development in English-learning childrenFricatives are rare in babbling and early speech, are produced relatively late in development, and misarticulation of fricatives can bepresent in normally developing children even as they enter elementary school. Previous studies have found a slow process ofacquisition and tuning that is likely due to articulatory considerations. We analyzed the number of word-initial and -final sibilantsproduced in spontaneous samples by 7 infants, taped at 2-month intervals between 14 and 28 months, as well as spectral moments.Results suggest that these children were starting to develop spectral shapes for sibilants like those of slightly older children.Cynthia Lyles-Scott (Florida Atlantic University) Session 68A slave by any other nameToni Morrison's narrative, Beloved, is an example of many different types of literature. It is a supernatural tale about a slain daughterwho comes back to life. It is a love story about two people who find one another after nearly 20 years. It is also a familial tale aboutthree generations of women and how their lives were and are affected by the institution of slavery. Of all these aspects of Beloved thatcould be argued as important within the context of the novel, the theme of reclaiming the self and identity, especially through namesor the act of naming or nicknaming, is clearly the most dominant aspect of the narrative, as well as the focus of this thesis.Jonathan E. MacDonald (University of Cyprus) WITHDRAWN Session 48Verb orientation & P incorporationI propose that verbs of inherently directed motion (VIDMs) are either goal-oriented or source-oriented as the result of lexicalincorporation of a goal or source preposition a la Hale and Keyser 1993.(1) a. John returned to the party at noon.b. John returned from the party at noon.The goal phrase indicates John's location at noon; the source phrase does not. Return is a goal-oriented VIDM. The opposite patternshold for source-oriented VIDMs. Moreover, I suggest that the achievement status of these VIDMs falls out directly from the presentlexical derivational account.145