1 Chernigovskaya,K.Gor.”The Complexity of Paradigm and Input Frequencies in Native and Second Language Verbal Processing: Evidence from Russian // “Language and Language Behavior” ( Eds. Erling Wande & Tatiana Chernigovskaya), 2000, 20-37 The Complexity of Paradigm and Input Frequencies in Native and Second Language Verbal Processing: Evidence from Russian 1 Tatiana Chernigovskaya* and Kira Gor** * St. Petersburg State University, Russia tatiana@TC3839.spb.edu **University of Maryland, USA kirao@wam.umd.edu Abstract This study compares the processing of Russian verbal morphology in adult native speakers and American learners of Russian. It explores the role of type frequency, the complexity of paradigm, and morphological cues in Russian, a language with numerous verb classes and developed conjugational paradigms. Russian lacks the sharp distinction between regular and irregular verbs found in English, and accordingly, the study introduces the parameter of the complexity of paradigm to capture the gradual nature of regularity in a language with complex verbal morphology. The data were collected from 27 adult native Russian speakers and 15 American learners of Russian in two matched experiments. In both experiments, the subjects were asked to generate non-past-tense forms of the verb stimuli presented in the past tense. In 1 The authors extend their gratitude to Tatiana Kliorina and Natalia Sliusar for help with data collection and analysis. Acknowledgments. The work was partly supported by The Russian Scientific Foundation for Research in Humanities (grant 00-04-00338a) and by The Russian Foundation for Basic Research ( grant 00-15-98855)