J. M. Rosenblatt and G. A. Willis introduced the notion of configurations
for finitely generated groups $G$. They characterised amenability
of $G$ in terms of the configuration equations. In this paper we
investigate which group properties can be characterised by
configurations. It is proved that if $G_1$ and $G_2$ are two
finitely generated groups having the same configuration sets and
$G_1$ satisfies a semigroup law, then $G_2$ satisfies the same
semigroup law. Furthermore, if $G_1$ is abelian then $G_1$ and
$G_2$ are isomorphic.