Directionals, episodic structure, and geographic information systems: Area/punctual distinctions in Ahtna travel narration

Abstract

Abstract Interest in the past decades in the way spatial cognition manifests in language has led to a growing body of literature on the topic. The concurrent development of user-friendly geographic information systems (GIS) software can give linguists new perspectives on spatial language, especially narratives describing geographic landscapes, by allowing the researcher access to those landscapes in a way that was previously only available by visiting the region in person. In this paper, I discuss how the use of GIS reveals that Ahtna speakers use subtle distinctions in the directional system to structure discourse about overland travel into narrative episodes. Ahtna is an Athabascan language spoken in the Copper River area of southcentral Alaska by about 35 native speakers.