Становление падежной системы и обработка падежных форм в русском языке как иностранномAcquisition and processing of case in L2 Russian

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate acquisition, production and processing of case in Russian as a second language (L2). Three papers were selected for the defense. The first one is a corpus study based on a collection of texts produced by Catalan-Spanish learners of Russian with different proficiency levels.The other two analyze case form processing in native speakers and L2 readers using experimental methods: self-paced reading and grammaticality judgment.Very few studies focus on the L2 acquisition of the case system as a whole, either in Russian or in other morphologically rich languages, and experimental studies of L2 case processing in a sentential context are also sparse. The dissertation aims to fill this gap. It addresses two major research questions. Firstly, in which order are cases acquired in Russian as an L2, and what factors predetermine this order? Secondly, do L1 and (proficient) L2 readers rely on the same processing mechanisms?The dissertation provides a much more detailed picture of case system acquisition than the one that can be found in the previous studies.The conclusions may be relevant for the L2 acquisition of other morphologically complex categories in other languages. As for the question concerning processing mechanisms, the dissertation suggests a novel way of addressing it: testing whether L2 learners develop native-like processing problems. As a result, the dissertation supports the approaches assuming that the mechanisms for L1 and L2 processing are the same, but L2 processing is more cognitively demanding and therefore slower.