Our project investigates the assumption that cross-linguistic differences in the morphosyntactic expression of negation can lead to differences in how negation is processed and acquired in typologically different languages. Specifically, we compare negation in German and Spanish: in Spanish, the surface position of the negator is early in the sentence, before the finite verb. In German, the negator appears late and after the finite verb. Moreover, sentential negation in Spanish is restricted to one, preverbal, position, whereas the sentential negator in German may appear in different surface positions. We examine whether these cross-linguistic differences affect adult comprehension and child acquisition.