Up and down in Aulua

Abstract

This paper investigates the ways in which direction and location are encoded in the Aulua language spoken on the southeast coast of the island of Malakula, Vanuatu. The topography of the locale explains the importance of verbs and modifiers that contrast ‘upward/landward’ movements to ‘downward/seaward’ directions. There are competing conceptualisations and lexicalisations of the axis that bisects this inclined plane. Either a single term is used to indicate ‘across’ in both directions, or the terms ‘up’ and ‘down’, are recycled. The domain of the system employing the undifferentiated traverse is found to equate to an intimate geographic sphere of interaction slightly larger than the Aulua speaking locale. Locations or movements to places outside this local zone are located via the system with the two lexically differentiated axes.