This research project was designed to analyze by quantitative methods a corpus of writing produced by four groups of American college students enrolled in German courses and by one group of professional German writers. Analysis was undertaken in order to determine whether or not significant quantitative differences in the use of selected syntactic structures exist between the American students and the German writers and to test the validity of the Hunt method of measuring syntactic maturity when applied to the writing of second language learners and native Germans. Findings of the study indicated that developmental stages in the acquisition of written German syntax did exist and that these stages were clearly definable between every other level; similarity of developmental stages was present in so far as the second language learners attained a comparable level of syntactic growth reached by representative English speakers; syntactic maturity consists of the writer's ability to pack more information into sentences and T-units by lengthening independent clauses and by using more subordination; and modified sentence-combining practice might prove to be an interesting way of hastening syntactic development in German. (RB)