The use of aspect in a Gwich'in narrative

Abstract

This work is an investigation of the role of viewpoint aspect in highlighting and fore grounding information in discourse, and in structuring narrative discourse within a Gwich'in narrative. The purpose is to contribute to a clearer understanding of how aspect functions cross-linguistically. The focus of the analysis is on the perfective/imperfective contrast which involves speaker choice. The findings are that there is an interesting correlation between shift in narrative episode and shift in viewpoint aspect, and additionally, that the use of the perfective does highlight and mark significant information in the narrative. The study also examines the narrative in terms of proposed universals in narrative structure, as outlined by Labov, but does not find enough evidence to support his claims in Gwich'in.