Finiteness is a property of the functional-category system in Dutch. In this article, it will be claimed that in early child Dutch finiteness is not yet part of the children's productive grammatical system. In utterances in which adults would use a finite verb, children regularly produce infinitives. Examples from a corpus of diary data collected from the present author's two children are oppe nek zitte `on the neck sit' (Jasmijn 1;10), poes bal hebbe 'kitty ball have' (Jasmijn 1;11), papa uitdoen 'daddy outdo' (Andrea 2;0) apie da zitte `monkey there sit' (Andrea 2;1). Finiteness, so it is claimed, is a grammatical property of the target language that has to be achieved through processes of acquisition. The acquisition of finiteness is a developmental process. At the initial stage of acquisition, it seems that properties of finiteness are expressed through the use of a few modal operators. These modal operators occur "holistically," that is, they have scope over the topic predicate structure as a whole. The holistic use of clausal operators is most prominently present with nee 'no' meaning 'I don't want'. As positive alternatives to nee Dutch children make use of elements such as ulle or unne, which are based on the target verb form wil(len) 'want', or mag-ikke 'may I', which serves as an unanalyzed phrase. The holistic use of modal operators expressing "volition" is characteristic of the initial stage of acquisition. Examples are utterances such as nee Cynthia afpakke 'no C snatch away' (Jasmijn 1;9), ulle ik sijfe 'want I write' (Jasmijn 1;9), pop pot nee 'doll broken no' (Andrea 1;10), mag-ikke fomme, ja? 'may-I swing, yes?' (Andrea 2;0). After the "holistic stage, " a major development occurs with the acquisition of a closed class of modal phrases, which consists not only of the previously used expressions nee 'no', ulle 'want', mag-ikke 'may-I', but also of the elements kanniet 'cannot', kanwel 'can-indeed', magniet 'may-not', mag(wel) 'may-indeed', hoe(f)niet 'has-to-not', moettie 'has-to', niet 'not', doemaar 'do-please', kommes 'come just' and doetie 'does-he'. These modal phrases appear to constitute a category of protofunctional elements. It is claimed that they are used to express illocutionary force, that is, "volition": nee, ulle, mag-ikke; "ability": kanniet, kanwel; "possibility": magniet, magwel; "obligation": hoefnie, moettie, niet, doemaar, kommes, and "assertion": niet, doetie. At the relevant stage, utterances basically consist of three structural positions each for entities with particular discourse-functional properties. Topic information occurs in first position, modal phrases expressing illocutionary force occur in second position, and information referring to a particular state of affairs occurs in final position. Examples are dit nee afdoen 'this no off-do' (Jasmijn 1;10), poes il mij vinger happe 'kitty want my finger bite' (Jasmijn 1;11), Jaja mag dop opdoen 'J may lid on-do' (Andrea 2;0), da kanniet zitte 'there cannot sit' (Andrea 2;1). The three constituents whose positioning is motivated by their pragmatic function are syntactically related by adjunction. Since ordering seems to be determined by principles of information structuring, this stage of acquisition is termed the "conceptual-ordering stage." Reinterpretation of the protofunctional category of illocutionary phrases occurs as a result of the acquisition of the auxiliary verbs heb/heeft 'have/has' and ben/is 'am/is'. In the context of lexical past participle forms, these auxiliaries constitute a category AUX, which has the grammatical function of a head constituent. It is argued that the presence of AUX initiates major developments in the acquisition of the target use of finiteness. Evidence shows that, at the relevant stage, the closed class of modal phrases used to express illocutionary force is reanalyzed in terms of the target-functional category AUX, expressing both aspect and illocutionary force simultaneously. Furthermore, auxiliary verbs cooccur with pronominal elements referring to the external argument. Analysis of these elements as constituents establishes a relation of morphological agreement between the auxiliary verbs heb/heeft 'have, has' or ben/is 'am, is' and the external argument. Since grammaticalization of the illocutionary phrase establishes a relation between elements occurring in topic position and elements referring to a particular state of affairs, this developmental stage is termed the 'finite-linking stage.
