Re: Subject/Object participles

On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 06:46:34 -0500, Matthew <ave.jor@...> wrote:
>
> 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
>i f 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 :)/
> /
This is interesting. Since I don't speak French, I thought it might be a
difference in dialect, but the dictionary definitely has lu as the past participle,
not lit. But lit is exactly the form you'd expect if you applied the French sound
changes to lectum! It seems the French at some point changed a lot of past
participles analogously, since lu would have to have come from *legu:tum
(which requires the infinitive to be *leguere, not legere -- something to do
with legu:mina?).

Jeff

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