--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mkapovic@... wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mkapovic@... wrote:
> >
> >> But 3. sg. = 3. pl. is hardly a Proto-Baltic innovation... Even
in
> > Old
> >> Lith. you have e~sti and es±~.
> >
> Sorry, I was writing from my memory. I know I saw Old Lith. esaN~
quoted
> as the 3. pl. somewhere but I don't know where. Could be I'm (or my
source
> which I don't remember) wrong.
Active participle is optionally used instead of a finite form in
Lithuanian when the narrator reports something in which he hasn't
taken part personally (<jìs gyve~naNs káime> 'he (reportedly) lives
in the country' vs. <jìs gyve~na káime> 'he lives in the country (and
I've seen it with my own eyes)'), so your source could just have
misinterpreted an Old Lithuanian text. There's no doubt that the act.
3 pl. participle <esa~N> was intensively used in Old Lithuanian in
such a way in indirect speech, because it turned into an
adverb 'allegedly' in Modern Standard Lithuanian (<jìs esa~N gyve~na
káime> 'he allegedly lives in the country').
By the way, the N. pl. form <esa~N> itself is usually interpreted as
secondary, probably replacing the older *saN~, indeed attested in the
oblique cases in Old Lithuanian (G.pl. san~c^iuN etc.).
Sergei