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The object of this study is to test Meisel’s (2009) hypothesis that there is a sensitive phase in language acquisition that ends around age 4. Early L2 acquisition may therefore already show differences from L1 acquisition. To test this hypothesis, determiner production in the naturalistic speech of four successive bilingual Turkish-German children recorded during free-play situations was compared to that of monolingual German children discussed in the literature. The successive bilinguals had an age of onset of German between 3 and 4 years and were studied over a period of 20 months. Determiner production was examined because Turkish, as opposed to German, does not have an article system. Determiner omission and incorrect article use were considered. A clear difference emerged in determiner omission, but not in article misuse. After some initial variability in determiner production, determiner omission by the monolingual children was found to gradually fall below 10 per cent, while a plateau effect could be observed in the bilingual children. There was no clear evidence for article misuse in either the L1 or the child L2 data. Our findings about determiner omission suggest that early L2 acquisition differs from L1 acquisition. It is unclear, however, whether the child L2 learners will persist in omitting determiners from obligatory contexts, since data collection was ended while the children were still in the process of acquiring German.
