SIL International Media Release
SIL Peru Contributed to V Congreso Nacional de Investigaciones Lingüístico-Filológicas
(August 2007) SIL researchers participated in the V Congreso Nacional de Investigaciones Lingüístico-Filológicas (Fifth National Congress of Linguistic Investigation) at the University Ricardo Palma in Lima, Peru. Five papers were presented by the SIL participants. About 200 attended and presenters came from 13 countries.
Diane and Dan Hintz at the Linguistic Congress
"Unquestionably, in a multilingual and multicultural country such as Peru, themes related to language are of singular importance," stated Dan Hintz, one of the SIL presenters. Hintz is an expert on the Quechuan language and PhD candidate in Linguistics at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Hintz added, "We felt like we were in our element. A tremendous amount of good can be accomplished by participating in these events, presenting good work and talking to people."
On the practical side, Dan and Diane (also a PhD candidate at UCSB) Hintz reported they profited by gaining new understandings about tense and aspect markers—key areas in their research.
The following papers were presented by SIL members:
- Agot Bergli—Switch reference and its extended functions
- Dan Hintz—From aspect to modality in Quechua: The grammatical categories of 'mutual consent' versus 'obligation'
- Diane Hintz—Discourse pattern replication: Uses of the perfect in Spanish in contact with Quechua
- Christa Tödter—The orthography challenge: Experience in writing the Pastaza River Inga language
- Ralph Toliver—The phonology of nicknames
The Congress was organized by Dr. Luis Miranda of the University Ricardo Palma along with UNESCO’s branch for Reading and Writing in Latin America, headquartered in Peru, the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of the National University of San Marcos, and the Peruvian Academy of Language. The Congress brought together researchers in these and related social sciences to present their fieldwork and experience with colleagues, students and the general public.