Home | Contact Info | Main Office Contacts | Uvic Main | FAQ | Joe Wilson
Faculty | Visiting Appointments | Emeriti | Staff | Linguistics Research | Coursework Materials
Students | UVic Calendar | Timetable Fall 2008 | Timetable Spring 2009 | Current Grad Students | Linguistics Alumni
Courses | Applied Linguistics | UVic Calendar | Timetable Fall 2008 | Timetable Spring 2009 | Course Materials | WebCT | Programs
Research | Chinese | Japanese | Indigenous | Phonetics
Resources | Facilities | Equipment | Multimedia IPA chart | PDBlive! | Voice-Quality matrix | Charts | Handbook
News | Events | Jobs | Seminars


Suzanne Gessner received a B.A. in French and Linguistics from the University of Regina (1993), and an M.A. (1999) and Ph.D. (2003) in Linguistics from the University of British Columbia. She came to the University of Victoria in 2003 as a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, and is now continuing as a Limited Term Assistant Professor in Syntax and First Nations languages (2006-2008).

Dr. Gessner's research focus is on Dene (Athabascan) languages, especially Dakelh (also known as Carrier), an endangered language spoken in central interior British Columbia. Her dissertation examines the phonology and phonetics of the stress and tone system of Dakelh, and more recent work concentrates on issues in Dakelh morphosyntax including relative clauses, causatives, direct & indirect discourse complements, and WH-questions. As an integral part of her research, Dr. Gessner is concerned with issues of language revitalization, curriculum development and second language acquisition of First Nations languages. She has an ongoing online dictionary project of the Lheidli dialect of Dakelh, with collaborators Bill Poser (UBC) and Chris Coey (UVic Linguistics).

Other areas of interest include the historical development of Dakelh, other Dene languages (especially Navajo and Dene Suline), languages of BC and North America more generally (typology, areal features) and Icelandic morphology and syntax.


Selected Recent Work - click to view/hide