This volume presents the intermediate results of the international "Crosslinguistic Project on Pre- and Protomorphology in LanguageAcquisition" co-ordinated by Wolfgang U. Dressler in behalf of theAustrian Academy of Sciences. It continues the series of publications started with Dressler & Karpf 1995, Dressler 1997, Dziubalska-Kolaczyk1997, Gillis 1998, Bittner, Dressler and Kilani-Schoch 2000 as well as individual publications of the project participants. About the project - take the introduction from Dressler (manuscript for SanSebastian).The book includes several introductory chapters (Dressler &Kilani-Schoch, Stephany, Voeikova) written by the project co-ordinators on the base of the written reports of participants and several studies on the acquisition of noun and verb morphology in the transitory phase from pre- to protomorphology (for definitions seeBittner, Dressler and Kilani-Schoch 2000: 3 ff.) and in the protomorphological phase in eight languages (German, Finnish, French,Yucatec Maya, Italian, Lithuanian, Russian and Spanish). Both inflectional and derivational morphology is observed in nouns, including such topics as compounding, diminutive formation, case and number distinctions. Verbs are described from the point of view of inflectional morphology and agreement. Case vs. number and person - heterogeneous.Number and person - crosslinguistically - the difference is in the type of marking and shape (more patterns, inflectional classes etc. vs. phonological harmony). The set of forms is comparable. Case- the set of forms is hardly comparable without grouping. Big number of forms in the paradigm does not aggravate their acquisition if there are no inflectional classes. On the other hand, small number of distinct inflectional forms, analytical marking, other means to express case distinctions may slow the process.Table of contentsMaria Voeikova (Saint Petersburg, Vienna) & Wolfgang U. Dressler (Vienna): IntroductionUrsula Stephany (Cologne): Early development of grammatical number - a typological perspectiveMaria Voeikova (Saint Petersburg, Vienna): The acquisition of case in typologically different languagesMarianne Kilani-Schoch (Lausanne) & Wolfgang U. Dressler (Vienna): The emergence of inflectional paradigms in two French corpora: an illustration of general problems of pre- and protomorphologySabine Klampfer & Katharina Korecky-Kröll (Vienna): Nouns and verbs at the transition from pre- to protomorphology: a longitudinal case study on Austrian GermanBarbara Pfeiler (Merida): Noun and verb acquisition in Yucatec Maya..Klaus Laalo (Tampere): Acquisition of case in Finnish: a preliminary overview...Ineta Savickiene (Kaunas): The emergence of case distinctions inLithuanianMaria Voeikova (Saint Petersburg, Vienna) & Natalia Gagarina (Berlin):Early syntax, first lexicon and the acquisition of case forms by twoRussian childrenAnna de Marco (Cosenza): The development of diminutives in Italian: input and acquisitionVictoria Marrero (Madrid), María José Albalá (Madrid) & Ignacio Moreno (Málaga): Use of diminutives by children and adults in Spanish. A preliminary analysisCarmen Aguirre (Vienna): The acquisition of tense and aspect morphology: a key for semantic interpretationZrinka Jelaska, Melita Kovacevic & Maja Andel (Zagreb): Morphology and semantics - the basis of Croatian caseAuthors' page