Re: Subject/Object participles

R A Brown wrote:
> This was situation in Vulgar Latin and is the origin of the
> distinction observed in most (but not modern Spanish) Romance langs,
> cf. French:
> il est venue <-- *(ille) est venutus = he is having-come (cf.
> Esperanto 'li estas venita')
> but:
> il a lit le livre <-- (ille) habet lectum illum librum = he has the
> read (having been read) book.
>
> You will notice the lack of asterisk before the second example because
> this construction, which was obviously commonplace in Vulgar Latin, is
> also attested to a limited extent in the Classical language.
> ====================================
I have a problem with the phrase,/ il a lit le livre/; I can't make any
sense of it, and to me it defiantly does not seem to correspond to the
English translation.
I think that "he has the read book", in French would be /il a le livre lu
/whereas/ *il a lit le livre : he has (is reading/reads) the book/ and
if by /lit /you meant /lu/, then it would be "he has read the book". I
my self would put He has the read book (which to me seems wrong somehow
anyway) as /il a le livre qui a été lu.
/If I'm missing something, please tell me so, and if I'm right, glad I
could help :)/
/