A B S T R A C TUsing a parent report instrument, the development of vocabulary and grammar was examined in 333 German-speaking children aged between 1;6 and 2;6. Grammar scales measured sentence complexity and inflectional morphology. Results indicate that vocabulary increased faster than sentence complexity and inflectional morphology. Within inflectional paradigms, noun plural and gender marking were acquired faster than case marking and verb inflections. Modals and copula were acquired most slowly. There was extensive variability on all language scales. The different language skills were strongly related, with grammatical development increasing non-linearly in dependence on vocabulary. There was a mild effect of gender favouring girls. The results converge with results of studies in other languages using a parent report instrument. There is some evidence for concurrent validity for the present questionnaire.

A B S T R A C TThe acquisition of noun gender on articles was studied in a sample of 21 young German-speaking children. Longitudinal spontaneous speech data were used. Data analysis is based on 22 two-hourly speech samples per child from 6 children between 1; 4 and 3;8 and on 5 two-hourly speech samples per child from 15 children between 1;4 and 2; 10. The use of gender marked articles occurred from 1;5. Error frequencies dropped below 10% by 3; 0. Definite and indefinite articles were used with similar frequencies and error rates did not differ in the two paradigms. Children's errors were systematic. For monosyllabic nouns and for polysyllabic nouns ending in -el, -en and -er errors were more frequent for nouns which did not conform to the rule that such nouns tend to be masculine. Furthermore, children erred in the direction of the rule overgeneralizing der. Correct gender marking was also associated with adult frequency of noun use. The present data is evidence for the early use of phonological regularities of noun structure in the acquisition of gender marking.