This study concerns the presence and status of Tense in young children's nonfinite main clauses, or root infinitivals (RIs). Verb- containing utterances produced by four Dutch-speaking boys (age range 1;9-3;2) were classified along the following dimensions: finite-infinitive; temporal reference, as indicated by linguistic and non-linguistic context; and type of verb - eventive vs. non- eventive. The data show that (a) the proportion of non-eventive verbs in RIs is close to zero, whereas they make up approximately half of the finite predicates, and (b) RIs are used to refer to present, past as well as (predominantly) future eventualities, while the temporal reference of finite sentences is restricted to 'present'. It is argued that these findings support the assumption that RIs do not contain Tense, and that their temporal reference comes about as a result of the contextual interpretation of an event variable, if available. The results of a pilot experiment suggest that the pattern in production is mirrored in comprehension.
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