Susanne Gahl
Assistant professor

Psycholinguistics; Corpus linguistics; usage-based effects on language and cognition; language production and comprehension.
Ph.D., Linguistics, University of California at Berkeley, 2000.

Groups: Language & Cognition, Phonetics, Phonology, & Morphology

Contact information

Office hours: Tuesday , 1:30-2:30, Wednesday, 2:00-3:00

Personal statement

I am interested in the relation between the form of language and the processes by which language is produced, understood, and lost (e.g. in language disorders, such as aphasia). I study patterns of language form in order to understand mechanisms underlying language production and comprehension. A general hypothesis underlying my work is that our experience as speakers shapes the form of language, as well as the way we process language. Because of this relation between linguistic form and processing, I am interested in effects of usage probabilities and frequencies. My work on pronunciation variation challenges the traditional "grammar vs. usage" distinction, by showing that usage-based syntactic probabilities affect pronunciation, in a manner inconsistent with the traditional distinction. At the methodological level, my work combines psycholinguistic experimentation and corpus linguistic investigations.

Selected publications

2008. Gahl, S. "Thyme" and "Time" are not homophones. Word durations in spontaneous speech.  Language 84(3), 474-496.

2006. Gahl, S. & Garnsey, S. M. Knowledge of grammar includes knowledge of syntactic probabilities. Language vol. 82(2), 405-410. [Full article in PDF]

2006. Gahl, S., Garnsey, S., Fisher, C. & Matzen, L. "That sounds unlikely": Syntactic probabilities affect pronunciation. Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. [Full article in PDF]

2006. Gahl, S. & Yu, A.C.L (eds.) Special Issue on Exemplar-based Mode ls in Linguistics. The Linguistic Review 23(3).

2006. Schwartz, M., Dell, G. S., Martin, N., Gahl, S. & Sobel, P. A Case-series test of the interactive two-step model of lexical access: Evidence from picture naming. Journal of Memory and Language 54, 228-264. [Full article in PDF]

2004. Gahl, S. & Garnsey, S. M. Knowledge of grammar, knowledge of usage: Syntactic probabilities affect pronunciation variation. Language 80(4), 748-775. [Full article in PDF]

2004. Regier, T. & Gahl, S. Learning the unlearnable: The role of missing evidence. Cognition 93, 147-155. Abstract [Full article in PDF]