This monograph originated as an interim report on the research project Cog- nitive and Social Determinants on Language Acquisition which I conducted under the auspices of the German Department of the University of Frankfurt from September 1971 until the end of 1976. Since November 1972 this project was financed by the Max-Planck-Institut fur Bildungsforschung in Berlin as part of the research project Elternhaus und Schule conducted by Oevermann, Krappmann, and Kreppner. While the goal of this project on language acquisition is the reconstruc- tion of the language development of three German...

These proceedings are composed of three parts: 1) the indi- vidual papers, 2) their discussions, and 3) a retrospective summa- tion of the meeting's deliberations. If we were to suggest a start- ing place for reading it would probably be the summation --it at- tempts to place the various papers and discussions into a general context and to point out relevant ideas of current knowledge and of potentially useful avenues for further research. The papers and discussions deal more specifically with the indiviaual topics. It is hoped that the tone and tenor of the meeting are some- what reflected...