It is now generally accepted that the propagation reaction in the cationic ring-opening polymerization of cyclic amines is a nucleophilic attack of the monomer nitrogen on a strained cyclic ammoni um salt which is the active species of the growing macromolecule. The driving force of the polymerization is the relief of strain associated with the ring-opening of the active chain end. The resultant polymer molecules, however, also contain nucleophilic amino functions and therefore the polymer competes with monomer to react with the active species. This results in the formation of a (linear or cyclic) non-strained and therefore non-reactive ammoni um salt.With secondary cyclic amines (R=H), the proton on the terminated ammoni um salt as well as the proton on the active species can be transferred to other amino groups present in the mixture including monomer. Dimers and other low oligomers are therefore the initial products, and the final products are branched polymers containing a distribution of primary, secondary and tertiary amino functions (1, 2).With cyclic tertiary amines (R = alkyl), the formation of a non-strained ammoni um salt is a real termination reaction. If the rate of this termination reaction is not negligably small compared with the rate of the propagation, in other words if the ratio kp/kt is not very high, the polymerization will stop before 1