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From: stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Pascal MacProgrammer)
Subject: Esperanto-English
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Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995 17:03:40 GMT
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Not so very long ago, philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk said...

>Does any natural language have the same system of participles as Esperanto?

  Greek comes close.  Esperanto has six participles:  past, present, and 
future, with an actave and a passive form for each.
  I can't tell you off-hand whether Greek participles match all of these, 
but I know that they're versatile, so that Greek can very often use a 
participle where English has to use an entire subordinate clause.
  Esperanto's use of participles falls somewhere between Greek and 
English.  It's =capable= of using them as much as Greek does, in the same 
ways, but the custom seems to be to use them much less than that, but 
still more than English does.

-- 
                              ==----=                    Steve MacGregor
                             ([.] [.])                     Phoenix, AZ
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        Help stamp out, eliminate, and abolish redundancy!
