Aspects of root infinitives

Abstract This paper discusses the phenomenon of root infinitives (RIs) in child language, focussing on a distributional restriction on the verbs that occur in this construction, viz. event-denoting verbs, as well as on a related aspect of interpretation, viz. that RIs receive modal interpretations. The modality of the construction is traced to the infinitival morphology, while the eventivity restriction is derived from the modal meaning. In contrast, the English bare form, which is often taken to instantiate the RI-phenomenon, does not seem to be subject to the eventivity constraint, nor do we find a modal reference effect. This confirms the analysis, which traces these to the infinitival morphology itself, which is absent in English. The approach not only provides a precise characterization of the distribution of the RI-phenomenon within and across languages; it also explains differences between the English bare form phenomenon and the RI-construction in languages with genuine infinitives by reference to the morphosyntax of the languages involved. The fact that children appear to be sensitive to these distinctions in the target systems at such an early age supports the general thesis of Early Morphosyntactic Convergence, which the authors argue is a pervasive property of the acquisition process.