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This dissertation analyzes the reflexivity patterns in Uralic languages from the point of view of a minimalist approach to binding. The languages under consideration are five Uralic languages spoken in the Russian Federation: Meadow Mari, Komi-Zyrian, Khanty, Besermyan Udmurt, and Erzya. The empirical data were compiled during fieldwork, and are used to test and assess current approaches to binding. The main focus of the dissertation is on a number of puzzles posed by these languages, namely the locally bound pronominals in Khanty, as well as the binding domains of what I call semi-reflexives and their ability to take split antecedents in Meadow Mari, Komi-Zyrian, Besermyan Udmurt, and Erzya. The analysis of reflexive strategies proposed in this dissertation is based on a modular approach to binding (see Reuland 2011). It disentangles the various factors playing a role in establishing interpretive dependencies, including properties of predicates and syntactic chains. The puzzling behavior of reflexive strategies under discussion is accounted for in terms of their morphosyntactic composition in tandem with general properties of grammatical computation. The present approach provides a unified basis for verbal and nominal reflexives. Overall, the study shows that cross-linguistic variation is not random. It demonstrates how descriptive fieldwork and theoretical research can be mutually beneficial and how their symbiosis deepens our understanding of the general principles underlying language, and the way these are rooted in our cognitive system.

Dyslexia, a learning disability affecting reading and spelling, occurs in 3-10% of the general population. For many people diagnosed early in life the symptoms of dyslexia persist into adulthood causing them difficulties with functioning in the modern society so much reliant on the written word. This dissertation assesses the manifestations of developmental dyslexia in behavior, cognition and neuroanatomy as predicted by the procedural deficit hypothesis. According to the theory, a dysfunction in the cortico-cerebellar network responsible for procedural learning in both the motor and the language domains causes impoverished implicit motor and language learning abilities and eventually difficulties with language and motor skills in people with dyslexia. The study described in this dissertation was conducted in a group of adult participants with dyslexia and a group of IQ- and age-matched controls. The general design of the investigation included three parts, the neuropsychological, the cognitive and the neuroanatomical. In the neuropsychological part the language and the motor symptoms of dyslexia were examined. Along with the reading-related problems, difficulties with abilities associated with such functions of the cerebellum as fine motor skills and time estimation abilities in people with dyslexia were discovered. The cognitive part addressed the explicit and implicit learning abilities studied with the help of the artificial language learning and the serial reaction time paradigms. While the explicit learning ability, thought to be dissociated from the implicit learning one, was found to be intact in people with developmental dyslexia, indications of deficient implicit learning abilities in both the motor and the language domains were observed. Both groups of participants showed learning on the implicit motor learning task, with the group of participants with dyslexia being slightly delayed. Learning on the implicit language learning task was observed only in the control group, the group with dyslexia exhibiting chance performance. In the neuroanatomical part the participants’ cerebellar volume and the asymmetry between the cerebellar hemispheres was examined by means of structural MRI. No differences in the volume of the two hemispheres or in the asymmetry between the two hemispheres in the two groups were detected. Importantly, this study examined the three levels, behavior, cognition and neuroanatomy, in the same group of people with dyslexia. While differences between people with and without dyslexia were found in the neuropsychological and the cognitive investigations, they were not detected on the neurological level. The neuroanatomical manifestations of dyslexia might be more obvious in children or in the function of the cerebellum rather than its structure. Further investigations in these directions might appear fruitful.

One of the core features of language is that words in a sentence often fulfill a dual task. For instance, in sentences with raising verbs like seem, what appears on the surface as the subject of seem, is interpreted as the subject of the embedded proposition. That is, in the sentence Tommy seems to have eaten the chocolate cake, Tommy appears as the subject of seem, but he’s not interpreted as the ‘seemer’. What is evaluated by seem is his property of being the eater of the cake. There is thus a discontinuity between the surface position and the position of interpretation; the subject has been displaced. In this thesis I investigate why subject displacement is difficult for our brain to process, and why it can go together with delays in language acquisition. Interestingly, raising verbs like seem not only display subject displacement, but also allow us to talk about realities that differ from our current one; they have an evidential meaning. As such, not only subject displacement can cause trouble in acquisition, but also the precise interpretational effects these raising verbs have. Another structure that displays subject displacement is the unaccusative structure (e.g. Tommy fell). The subject of unaccusative verbs has properties typically associated with syntactic objects, although it appears in subject position. Unaccusative verbs differ in this from unergative verbs for which the subject displays subject properties. Processing and acquisition of raising verbs is compared to processing and acquisition of unaccusative verbs to tear apart the separate effects of subject displacement and the specific interpretational requirements of raising verbs. In an innovative visual world experiment, we show that unaccusative structures with subject displacement delay interpretation compared to unergative structures. There is thus a close match between grammatical computation and processing. Furthermore, children from the age of five already distinguish between unaccusatives and unergatives. Apparently, children from that age are already aware of the subject displacement in unaccusative verbs. Raising verbs on the other hand, are acquired at a later point in acquisition. Moreover, depending on the precise interpretational effects, differences in the timing of acquisition occur. Similarly, different raising verbs have a different effect on processing in adults. This thesis has therefore shown that in order to understand the behavior of raising verbs in acquisition and processing, we have to distinguish on the one hand the effect they have in their capacity of raising verbs and in addition the effect in terms of their specific contribution to semantic interpretation. Their contribution to semantic interpretation affects processing and the course of acquisition. The precise interpretational effects do not come for free. It is therefore not only the syntactic computation, but also the computations required to establish the right semantics that influence the acquisition path. The language-acquiring child who has acquired subject displacement, does not necessarily possess all the tools that are required for an adult-like interpretation of the raising verbs. Linking the specific interpretation in terms of the reality under discussion to the particular raising verb takes somewhat longer.