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present data from self-paced reading time studies that isolate the effects of two factors that have not been properly controlled ingenerative research--the specificity of the filler (which-NP vs who/what) and the definiteness of the island-forming noun (e.g. fact).The results provide evidence that at least some syntactic island effects can and should be understood as the result of the extraordinaryprocessing demands of storing and retrieving a filler across long-distances while simultaneously processing other discourse entities.William J. Samarin (University of Toronto) Session 93The banal & abrupt origin of bracketed relative clauses in Pidgin SangoSango's relative marker evolved quickly from so 'thus' then 'this'. A few bracketed clauses (zo so a+ke zo ti fango zo so [person soPM+COP person of killing person so] 'the person who is/was a murderer') were documented in 1962. Recent recordings reveal greateruse. I argue that bracketing appeared with the increase in the use of pre- and post-posed so (e.g. so mo ga awe so ... [since 2s comeCOMPL thus] 'since you've come') in imitation of speakers of Ngbandi, the base language, many of whom held positions of privilegeand authority in the government for 15years.Natalya Y. Samokhina (University of Arizona) Session 22Acoustic analysis of voicing assimilation in native & nonnative Russian speechThis ongoing study investigates acoustic characteristics of regressive voicing assimilation in word-internal obstruent clusters in nativeand nonnative Russian speech. Based on the results of the pilot study, I hypothesize that even fairly advanced second languagelearners fail to apply the rule of voicing assimilation consistently, to the same extent as native speakers; thus producing *ve/zt/i ratherthan ve/st/i. However, as more input becomes available and second language learners notice the rule, they gradually converge on theproper voicing values.Ana Sánchez-Muñoz (University of Southern California) Session 11Linguistic elaboration across registers in the Spanish of heritage speakersI explore register and style variation in heritage language speakers of Spanish (HLS). The goal is to investigate whether there isvariation across linguistic registers or, on the other hand, whether the nondominant language of HLS (i.e. Spanish) is a monostylisticvariety. I focus on two linguistic features--attributive adjectives and type/token ratio (i.e. the proportion of different words in a sampleof text). The results confirm that HLS show more elaboration the more formal and literate the register is, which contradicts thehypothesis of monostylization in the Spanish of HLS.Kathy Sands (Biola University) Session 41Relationships among vowels, diphthongs, & triphthongs in the world's languagesSome languages contain only simple vowels, whereas other languages contain sequences of two or even three vocalic qualities inaddition. This study examines patterns of relationship among these vocalic types (vowels, bivocalics, trivocalics), a new paradigmaticcontext of inquiry, in a 42-language custom-constructed database. This study establishes that dispersion theory principles (Lindblom1986, 1990), particularly maximizing distinctiveness, apply to paradigmatic relations across vocalic types. Motivations appear toapply universally, across paradigmatic and syntagmatic dimensions and combinations thereof. A correlation between the presence oftrivocalics and larger inventories overall suggests as well that the amount of differentiation needed varies cross-linguistically.Osamu Sawada (University of Chicago) Session 46Pragmatic aspects of implicit comparisonThe compared to construction (1a) and the morphological comparative (1b) can be used to express comparison, but they have differentpragmatic properties. 1a, but not 1b, implies 2a-b:(1) a. Compared to Tom, Jim is tall. b. Jim is taller than Tom.(2) a. Tom is not tall. b. Jim is not definitely tall. (possibly borderline)This presentation investigates the low scale inferences of the compared to construction in terms of the coexistence of conventional andconversational implicatures and clarifies the pragmatic aspects of 'implicit comparison' (Sapir 1944) in general.Ronald P. Schaefer (Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville) Session 12A precedence constraint on argument positioningI explore lexically driven precedence relations between verb arguments in Emai (Benue-Congo). For moved object relative to goal,Emai favors basic precedence and disallows reverse precedence (goal - moved object). It shows 'pour' but not 'fill' verbs. Basic161