> I think the short answer is that english grammar is the result of
> trying to fit english practice into Latin grammar
It's more a matter of having a somewhat impoverished toolkit of linguistic concepts. The English past participle (actually a past passive participle) is closely analogous to similar morphological verbal-substantive categories in other Indo-European languages, and calling it a past participle (passive being understood) doesn't stretch the Latin category too much.
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Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
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