A growing number of studies have begun to examine the influence of language-specific factors on
language acquisition. During language acquisition German children from six years on use
structures that are similar to those of adults in their language group and also encode all
semantic components from an early age. In striking contrast French children up to ten years
have difficulties producing some of the complex structures that are necessary for the
simultaneous expression of several semantic components. Nonetheless in addition to these
striking cross-linguistic differences the results of this study also clearly show similar
developmental progressions in other respects suggesting the impact of general developmental
determinants.
