Carrol Cox wrote: >It's been fifty years since I read any Old English -- and I don't remember whether it had that participial construction of modern German and Russian. And if I remember correctly -- this is also 50 years or so ago -- my Russian instructor said that the Russians had deliberately imported the construction from German, during a period of infatuation with German culture. The Russian language _allows_ it but hadn't had it before sometime in the 19th century. (I won't swear by this because my memory of it is pretty vague.) _________________ Dear Carrol, Sorry to bother with such a silly statement, but I missed the bulk of the discussion (I cancelled some posts by mistake). I cannot understand what is the participial construction you are referring to in Russian. I'm studying both English and Russian at universty and I'd like to understand what you were referring to. Thank you, Sara --