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multi-ethnic configuration, and post-independence national policy in the area languages and toponymy. Many names coexist for aspecific place. A few questions call for answers. What name is legitimate? Why not standardize these place names? The first part ofthe paper provides an historical perspective. The second part elaborates on the colonial legacy, and the third part discusses the postcolonialpolicy in order to propose ways to carry out systematic research for standardization of toponymy.Lynn Nichols (University of California, Berkeley) Session 40A lexical semantic typology of noun rootsOn the basis of languages from the Pacific Rim area (North America, Amazonia, Oceania, Australia) a more fine-grained lexicalsemantic typology of noun root types can be discerned, roots containing only idiosyncratic information, roots containing grammaticalfunctionalinformation, and roots containing a complex of both types. The need for this typology indicates that it is not possible tomake a single statement about the semantic properties of noun 'roots' cross-linguistically; particular languages vary with respect towhat kind of lexical semantic information may be permitted to be packaged into a 'root'.Tatiana Nikitina (Stanford University) Session 36Derivational morphology & mixed category constructionsI focus on an unusual type of embedded clause in Wan (Southeastern Mande, Côte d'Ivoire), which has the internal structure of a nounphrase but is headed by a simple (i.e., nonnominalized) verb. I argue that the mixed syntactic properties of the internally nominalembedded clause cannot be derived from the head's morphological properties and suggest a diachronic explanation for thedevelopment of this construction.Alleen Pace Nilsen (Arizona State University) Session 69Don L. F. Nilsen (Arizona State University)The importance of names & naming practices in books written for young adultsThrough modern books popular with teen readers, we explain why naming, especially taking a new name, is more important toteenaged readers than it is to adult readers. We illustrate how authors use names and naming processes, not only for identifyingcharacters and places, but also for such different literary purposes as establishing settings-place, time, and genre, i.e., realistic vsimagined worlds. Skilled authors also use clever naming to help their readers remember who is who, to illustrate characterdevelopment through name changes, and to reveal different attitudes and practices related to ethnicity.Sumiyo Nishiguchi (University at Stony Brook, State University of New York) Session 56Fake past & contextsSimple sentences containing a past tense morpheme can receive non-past interpretations when expressing surprise, finding somethingas in 1, recalling the forgotten or with the fulfillment of expectation (Teramura 1984).(1) A, koko-ni at-ta/#a-ru. (Japanese)Oh here-LOC be-PAST/be-NONPAST`Oh, (the book) was here'I argue that speaker's implicit attitudes are ‘monsters’ which (contra Kaplan 1977) shift temporal parameters of the context of theformally past sentences, typically with unaccusative predicates. I propose that speaker attitudes are grammatically represented by anabstract determiner which takes negative presuppositions in the restrictor and the overt predicate in the nuclear scope.Dimitrios Ntelitheos (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities) Session 36Participant nominalizations as (reduced) headless relative clausesI propose that participant nominals have the structure of reduced headless relative clauses, based on Malagasy (Austronesian). Theclaim straightforwardly explains the relative clause-type interpretation of these nominals (player = 'one who plays'). Evidence for theclaim comes from identical restrictions on voice morphology in Malagasy relatives and participant nominals and their similar behaviorwith respect to binding principles. Cross-linguistically, participant nominalizations and relatives are frequently formed with identicalnominalizers and exhibit distributional similarities (participant nominals often assuming a modifying function). Morphosyntacticdifferences between the two types of strings are attributed to a reduction in the structure of participant nominals.152